Using the Metadata Object Description Schema (MODS) for resource description: guidelines and applications

This paper describes the Metadata Object Description Schema (MODS), its accompanying documentation and some of its applications. It reviews the MODS user guidelines provided by the Library of Congress and how they enable a user of the schema to consistently apply MODS as a metadata scheme. Because the schema itself could not fully document appropriate usage, the guidelines provide element definitions, history, relationships with other elements, usage conventions, and examples. Short descriptions of some MODS applications are given and a more detailed discussion of its use in the Library of Congress’s Minerva project for Web archiving is given.