Day 2 - Articles

Thursday, May 10th 9am-4pm

Today I spent my time reading articles and looking at templates relating to metadata, Dublin Core, and DSpace in preparation for creating a template for the Public Health Digital Library metadata.


Hillmann, D. (2005). Using Dublin Core. Dublin Core Metadata Initiative. Retrieved from http://dublincore.org/documents/2005/11/07/usageguide/.

The was a good introductory article to the idea of Dublin Core, and an excellent refresher for me. It includes specific definitions and examples of metadata and Dublin Core. It discusses the core principles of Dublin Core (one-to-one, dumb-down, and appropriate values). Another section included is that of the goals of Dublin Core. Dublin Core was created to be simplistic, both in its creation and in its ability to be understood by non-experts. It is also meant to be usable to create metadata for any object, which includes the ability to extent Dublin Core elements by using qualified elements, as well as allowing creators to repeat all elements indefinitely.

DCMI Usage Board. (2006). DMCI Metadata Terms. Dublin Core Metadata Initiative. Retrieved from http://dublincore.org/documents/2006/12/18/dcmi-terms/.

This document gives a concise overview of the Dublin Core metadata terms. It includes the term label, the definition, and general comments about the term such as examples and expansions on the definition. It was an excellent resource to refresh my knowledge of the 15 Dublin Core elements. The document also includes a list of element refinements which was extremely helpful in clarifying my understand of the refinement terms.


Powel, A. et. al. (2005). DMCI Abstract Model. Dublin Core Metadata Initiative. Retrieved from http://dublincore.org/documents/2005/03/07/abstract-model/.

This article was particularly applicable to my project, though it was very interesting from a development stand and had an excellent terminology definition section. The document was aimed more at people who are developing software which would support Dublin Core metadata, rather than for people already working within a specific type of software. It did of course discuss values, properties, elements, etc. It also discussed the principle of the "dumbing-down," which is the idea that for all qualified Dublin Core, it should be possible to "dumb-down" to unqualified Dublin Core while having the information still make sense.

(2006). Dublin Core Metadata Element Set, Version 1.1. Dublin Core Metadata Initiative. Retrieved from http://dublincore.org/documents/2006/12/18/dces/.


MIT Libraries. (2007). Metadata. DSpace Federation. Retrieved from DMCI Metadata Terms. Dublin Core Metadata Initiative. Retrieved from http://www/dspace.org/technology/metadata.html.

Since it is specifically DSpace which is being used for this project, the DSpace metadata overview was extremely useful. It lists and explains all of the Dublin Core qualifiers which are able to be used within the DSpace environment. I was able to use the as a base outline for the template I am to creat.