Interpretive journeys and METS: determining requirements for the effective management of complex digital objects in a national park

This paper deals with initial work carried out on a metadata options appraisal undertaken for the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park in the context of plans to create complex digital objects called 'Interpretive Journeys' and to ensure effective management of these and their constituent parts, together with a range of other digital materials, on an ongoing basis. Since the appraisal began in circumstances where these digital composites did not yet exist, where some aspects of their design remained sketchy, and where Park staff had limited experience of either the objects themselves or their use, it was concluded that an iterative approach to the determination of the full requirement was required and that METS, a Library of Congress maintained schema for encoding descriptive, administrative, and structural metadata for objects within a digital library, should provide the main basis of an agreed framework within which this could take place.