Metadata files

Metadata files catalogue the necessary information for the given level.

For our edition, there are two metadata files to consider. The first is the textgroup metadata file, and the second is the work metadata file. All metadata files are stored in the folder that they describe, and are named __cts__.xml

1. The textgroup metadata file

The root element of the textgroup metadata file is the <ti:textgroup> element. The necessary attributes for this element are xmlns:ti="http://chs.harvard.edu/xmlns/cts" and urn="urn:cts:mayaLit:lit0001". In essence, the first attribute is the XML namespace for CTS, and the second attribute is the CTS URN up to the textgroup subcomponent.

Within this element, it is necessary to provide the name of the textgroup in each of the languages used in the works. You can do this through the <ti:groupname> element, with a defined xml:lang attribute to the language used. As an example, here is the textgroup metadata file for the Ximenez edition.

<ti:textgroup xmlns:ti="http://chs.harvard.edu/xmlns/cts" urn="urn:cts:mayaLit:lit0001">
   <ti:groupname xml:lang="eng">Maya Literature</ti:groupname>
   <ti:groupname xml:lang="spa">Literatura maya</ti:groupname>
   <ti:groupname xml:lang="quc">Uch'ob'oj maya </ti:groupname>
</ti:textgroup>

2. The Work metadata file

Because the Work metadata file has much more elements and attributes than the textgroup metadata file, we will include our metadata file for reference as we explore the structure.

<ti:work xmlns:ti="http://chs.harvard.edu/xmlns/cts" groupUrn="urn:cts:mayaLit:lit0001" urn="urn:cts:mayaLit:lit0001.pw0001" xml:lang="quc">
  <ti:title xml:lang="quc">Popol Wuj</ti:title>
  
  <ti:edition workUrn="urn:cts:mayaLit:lit0001.pw0001" urn="urn:cts:mayaLit:lit0001.pw0001.popolwuj-quc:">        
    <ti:label xml:lang="quc">Popol Vuh</ti:label>
    <ti:description xml:lang="eng">Ximenez copy, K'iche' column</ti:description>
   </ti:edition>         
  
    <ti:edition workUrn="urn:cts:mayaLit:lit0001.pw0001" urn="urn:cts:mayaLit:lit0001.pw0001.popolwuj-spa:">        
      <ti:label xml:lang="quc">Popol Vuh</ti:label>
      <ti:description xml:lang="eng">Ximenez copy, Castellano column</ti:description>
   </ti:edition>    

</ti:work>

Similar to the textgroup metadata file, the root of this metadata file is the <ti:work> element. It has an equal xmlns:ti attribute. The groupUrn attribute is essentially the textgroup urn attribute, as it the "group" that these works belong to. Next, in place the urn attribute defined up until the textgroup, this urn attribute extends to include the work subcomponent. Thus, the URN would be urn="urn:cts:mayaLit:lit0001.pw0001".

Within this element, we have three items. The first is the <ti:title>, which serves as the title of the work, along with a xml:lang attribute describing the language of the title.

Based on CTS standards, the following two items are defined by the <ti:edition>, which list the K'iche' and Castellano columns as separately encoded texts. Though they are technically not distinct editions, for purposes of CTS we have encoded them as such because of 1) the necessary unique passage definition that is necessary to extract a passage, 2) the newfound ability to later compare each of the columns with newer editions either in K'iche' (such as Colop's 1999 poetic K'iche' edition) or in Spanish (such as Colop's 2008 Spanish edition).

Each of these element has a workUrn that has the same value as the urn attribute in the <ti:work> element. They both also have a urn attribute that adds the name of the encoded text, with a colon at the end. For instance, the K'iche' <ti:edition> defines urn as urn="urn:cts:mayaLit:lit0001.pw0001.popolwuj-quc:", and the Castellano <ti:edition> defines it as urn="urn:cts:mayaLit:lit0001.pw0001.popolwuj-spa:".

Each of these elements has two items. The first is a <ti:label> with the name and language of the "edition," along with a <ti:description> element that describes the work briefly.