rete aggregation of one or more bitstreams and the metadata about the properties of the object and, if applicable, methods of performing operations on the object. [General Dictionaries] 
n., In the technical sense, a type of data structure consisting of digital content, a unique identifier for the content (called a "handle"), and other data about the content, for example, rights metadata. See also: digital asset management and Digital Object Identifier [Computer and Information Sciences] 
n., A unit of digi