Metadata Extraction Tool Version 3.2

The National Library of New Zealand (Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa)
has announced the release of version 3.2 of its open-source Metadata
Extraction Tool. The tool was developed to programmatically extract
preservation metadata from a range of file formats like PDF documents,
image files, sound files Microsoft office documents, and many others.
The Metadata Extraction Tool builds on the Library's work on digital
preservation, and its logical preservation metadata schema. The
preservation metadata schema details the data elements needed to
support the preservation of digital objects and will form the basis
for the design of a database repository and input systems for
collecting and storing preservation metadata. It incorporates a number
of data elements needed to manage the metadata in addition to metadata
relating to the digital object itself. The Metadata Extraction Tool
is designed to: (1) automatically extracts preservation-related
metadata from digital files; (2) output that metadata in a standard
format (XML) for use in preservation activities. Although designed
for preservation processes and activities, it can be used to for
other tasks such as the extraction of metadata for resource discovery.
Extracting preservation metadata is a two-stage process. In the first
phase each incoming file is processed by the adapters until one of
the adapters recognises the file type. That adapter extracts data
from the header fields of the file and generates an Extensible Markup
Language (XML) file. In the second phase an Extensible Stylesheet
Language (XSL) transformation converts the internal XML file into
an XML file in a useful format. The Tool currently outputs the XML
file using the NLNZ preservation metadata data model schema. The
Tool is written in Java and XML and is distributed under the Apache
Public License (version 2). Developers may be interested in extending
some of the key components of the Metadata Extraction Tool such as
extending existing adapters or developing new ones to process other
file types, or creating new XSLT files to generate different XML
output formats. More Information