SGML: Dublin Core Metadata Elements
From owner-meta2@net.lut.ac.uk Wed Dec 11 10:57:41 1996
Date: Wed, 11 Dec 1996 10:50:38 -0500
From: weibel@oclc.org (Stu Weibel)
To: meta2@mrrl.lut.ac.uk
Subject: Re: SUBJECT and DESCRIPTION
Well, the sense of the list has moved away from my original reading of
the consensus, to the point that I believe there is good reason to
declare another element.
Please review the 'official' list of elements and make any suggestions
that you think might clarify the wording or intent.
thanks
stu
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Dublin Core Metadata Element Set: Reference Description
The following comprises the reference definition of the Dublin Core
Metadata Element set as of December, 1996. The elements or their names
are not expected to change substantively from this list, though the
application of some of them are currently experimental and subject to
interpretation. Further, it is expected that practice will evolve to
include sub-elements for certain of the elements.
Note that elements have a descriptive name intended to convey a common
semantic understanding of the element. In addition, a formal,
single-word label is specified to make syntactic specification of
elements simpler in encoding schemes.
Element Descriptions
1 Title Label: TITLE
The name given to the resource by the CREATOR or PUBLISHER.
2 Author or Creator Label: CREATOR
The person(s) or organization(s) primarily responsible for the
intellectual content of the resource. For example, authors in the
case of written documents, artists, photographers, or illustrators
in the case of visual resources.
3 Subject and Keywords Label: SUBJECT
The topic of the resource, or keywords or phrases that describe
the subject or content of the resource. The intent of the
specification of this element is to promote the use of controlled
vocabularies and keywords. This element might well include
scheme-qualified classification data (for example, Library of
Congress Classification Numbers or Dewey Decimal numbers) or
scheme-qualified controlled vocabularies (such as MEdical Subject
Headings or Art and Architecture Thesaurus descriptors) as well.
4 Description Label: DESCRIPTION
A textual description of the content of the resource, including
abstracts in the case of document-like objects or content
descriptions in the case of visual resources. Future metadata
collections might well include computational content description
(spectral analysis of a visual resource, for example) that may not
be embeddable in current network systems. In such a case this
field might contain a link to such a description rather than the
description itself.
5 Publisher Label: PUBLISHER
The entity responsible for making the resource available in its
present form, such as a publisher, a university department, or a
corporate entity. The intent of specifying this field is to
identify the entity that provides access to the resource.
6 Other Contributors Label: CONTRIBUTORS
Person(s) or organization(s) in addition to those specified in the
CREATOR element who have made significant intellectual
contributions to the resource but whose contribution is secondary
to the individuals or entities specifed in the CREATOR element
(for example, editors, transcribers, illustrators, and
convenors).
7 Date Label: DATE
The date the resource was made available in its present form. The
recommended best practice is an 8 digit number in the form
YYYYMMDD as defined by ANSI X3.30-1985. In this scheme, the date
element for the day this is written would be 19961203, or December
3, 1996. Many other schema are possible, but if used, they should
be identified in an unambiguous manner.
[does the group wish to specify RFC 822 dates here as well, or instead of?]
8 Resource Type Label: TYPE
The category of the resource, such as home page, novel, poem, working
paper, technical report, essay, dictionary. It is expected that
RESOURCE TYPE will be chosen from an enumerated list of types. A
preliminary set of such types can be found at the following URL:
http://www.roads.lut.ac.uk/Metadata/DC-ObjectTypes.html
9 Format Label: FORMAT
The data representation of the resource, such as text/html, ASCII,
Postscript file, executable application, or JPEG image. The
intent of specifying this element is to provide information
necessary to allow people or machines to make decisions about the
usability of the encoded data (what hardware and software might be
required to display or execute it, for example). As with RESOURCE TYPE,
FORMAT will be assigned from enumerated lists such as registered
Internet Media Types (MIME types). In principal, formats can include
physical media such as books, serials, or other non-electronic media.
10 Resource Identifier Label: IDENTIFIER
String or number used to uniquely identify the resource. Examples
for networked resources include URLs and URNs (when implemented). Other
globally-unique identifiers,such as International Standard
Book Numbers (ISBN) or other formal names would also be candidates for
this element.
11 Source Label: SOURCE
The work, either print or electronic, from which this resource is
derived, if applicable. For example, an html encoding of a
Shakespearean sonnet might identify the paper version of the
sonnet from which the electronic version was transcribed.
12 Language Label: LANGUAGE
Language(s) of the intellectual content of the resource. Where practical,
the content of this field should coincide with the Z39.53 three character
codes for written languages.
See: http://www.sil.org/sgml/nisoLang3-1994.html
13 Relation Label: RELATION
Relationship to other resources. The intent of specifying this
element is to provide a means to express relationships among
resources that have formal relationships to others, but exist as
discrete resources themselves. For example, images in a
document, chapters in a book, or items in a collection. A formal
specification of RELATION is currently under development. Users
and developers should understand that use of this element should
be currently considered experimental.
14 Coverage Label: COVERAGE
The spatial locations and temporal durations characteristic of the
resource. Formal specification of COVERAGE is currently under
development. Users and developers should understand that use of
this element should be currently considered experimental.
15 RIGHTS MANAGEMENT Label: RIGHTS
The content of this element is intended to be a link (a URL or
other suitable URI as appropriate) to a copyright notice, a
rights-management statement, or perhaps a server that would
provide such information in a dynamic way. The intent of
specifying this field is to allow providers a means to associate
terms and conditions or copyright statements with a resource or
collection of resources. No assumptions should be made by users
if such a field is empty or not present.