Members of the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative's DC-Libraries Application Profile working group have completed an initial DCMI public working draft for a Library Application Profile. Edited by Rebecca Guenther of the US Library of Congress, the document proposes a possible application profile that clarifies the use of the Dublin Core Metadata Element Set in libraries and library-related applications and projects. The concept of application profiles ('mixing and matching metadata schemas') "has emerged within the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative as a way to declare which elements from which namespaces are used in a particular application or project. Application profiles are defined as schemas which consist of data elements drawn from one or more namespaces, combined together by implementors, and optimised for a particular local application. The DCMI-Libraries Working Group has explored various uses of the Dublin Core Metadata Element Set in library and related applications and has has envisioned the following possible uses: (1) to serve as an interchange format between various systems using different metadata standards/formats; (2) to use for harvesting metadata from data sources within and outside of the library domain; (3) to support simple creation of library catalog records for resources within a variety of systems (e.g., using MARC equivalents of Dublin Core elements); (4) to expose MARC data to other communities (through a conversion to DC); (5) to allow for acquiring resource discovery metadata from non-library creators using Dublin Core."

The DCMI library application profile "is to be a specification that defines the following: (1) required elements; (2) permitted Dublin Core elements; (3) permitted Dublin Core qualifiers; (4) permitted schemes and values (e.g., use of a specific controlled vocabulary or encoding scheme); (5) library domain elements (to be registered); (6) library domain qualifiers (to be registered); (7) additional elements/qualifiers from other application profiles that may be used (e.g., DC-Education: Audience); (8) refinement of standard definitions."

Bibliographic information: Library Application Profile. DCMI Working Draft. Edited by Rebecca S.Guenther (US Library of Congress). 2001-08-08. Version URL: http://dublincore.org/documents/2001/08/08/library-application-profile/. The DCMI-Libraries Application Profile working group is a subset of the DCMI-Libraries Working Group.