MetadataCrosswalk - Raymond Yee's Wiki

When we started translating METS to other XML formats such as RSS and IMS-CP, I suspected that this type of translation work must have a historical and professional context but did not understand that context. I soon came across the term "metadata crosswalks" (A

google search for "metadata standards crosswalk" yields pointers to a good number of important efforts in this area: )

A good working definition of crosswalk comes from the The Dublin Core Metadata Glossary:

A table that maps the relationships and equivalencies between two or more metadata formats. Crosswalks or metadata mapping support the ability of search engines to search effectively across heterogeneous databases, i.e. crosswalks help promote interoperability.

An excellent discussion on the issues of crosswalks can be found at the Canadian Heritage Metadata Standards (which pointed us to the above definition).

I'm almost certain that the references provided therein will provide solid formal casting of the issues that we have encountered in performing our crosswalks. Two of the articles highlighted in the Canadian Heritage Metadata Standards page are:

What are the issues that I look forward to finding answers to when I dig deeper?

What exactly are the theoretical, practical, and historical strengths and weaknesses of crosswalks?
Are there any well-thought out mechanisms for generating good crosswalks?
What is the relationship between a traditional crosswalk approach and other approaches to solving the semantic interoperability problem?