Dublin Core Metadata Entry
Guidelines for Digital Collections at The College of Wooster
General Governing Rules:
1. Whenever possible, fill the field. Just because it’s not marked as mandatory doesn’t mean that it won’t be relevant in many cases.
2. At both the collection and the item level, you are describing the analog (physical) item, not the digital surrogate that you are creating.
|
Element |
Mandatory? |
Repeatable? |
Description |
Controlled Vocabulary |
|
Title |
Yes |
No |
The official title of the resource |
No |
|
Creator |
No |
Yes |
Curator, author, photographer, compiler, etc. |
No |
|
Subject |
Yes |
No** |
Be as descriptive as possible. At the collection level, include key subjects that show up throughout the collection. |
LC Subject Headings: http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects.html
unless artwork, in which case, use AAT: |
|
Description |
Yes |
No |
This is natural language, flexible field. In addition to a thorough description, use this field to include any additional information you want to convey to your audience about the item or collection being described. Can also be used for table of contents, translation, or abstract. |
No |
|
Publisher |
Yes |
Yes |
Indicate publisher or “Unpublished” |
No
|
|
Contributor |
No |
Yes |
To give credit to someone who translated, donated, or otherwise contributed to the item or collection. |
No |
|
Date |
Yes* |
No |
The date of original production of the item. For collections, date range of items included in collection. |
YYYY-MM-DD format. YYYY-MM or YYYY sufficient if month or day is unknown. |
|
Type |
Yes |
Yes |
Still Image, Moving Image, Text, Dataset, Event, Sound, Software |
These are the Dublin Core types that are available. It is a controlled vocabulary, so you must select one of these options. |
|
Format |
Yes |
No |
File format of file you are uploading. PDF, JPEG, TIFF, etc. |
No |
|
Identifier |
Yes |
No |
Unique identifier- cannot be repeated elsewhere in the collection. Should be short and descriptive, followed by numbers. |
Examples: Men_JohnDoe_001 or Men.01.001 No controlled vocabulary, but be consistent within the collection and document your organizational principle. |
|
Source |
No |
Yes |
Where did the item being described originate from? An example might be the call number of the print version of a resource or the bibliographic citation of the source. Another might be an archive that housed the object.
|
No |
|
Language |
No |
Yes |
The language(s) of the resource
|
ISO standard: https://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/php/code_list.php “eng” for English. |
|
Relation
|
No |
Yes |
Any related items (if the item is part of a larger collection or book, for example, indicate this here.) Example: Part 1 of 3 part edition or “Curated part of larger digital collection located here” |
No |
|
Coverage |
No |
Yes*** |
The time or geographic area that is the subject of the item or collection. Include all relevant. |
Time, natural language. Examples: 17th Century or 1988-1989; for geographic, use Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names: http://www.getty.edu/research/ tools/vocabularies/tgn/ OR Geonames
|
|
Rights |
Yes |
No |
Rights to reuse and reproduction of the materials. Will include the name of those parties that should be contacted for permission. |
Creative Commons licensing if you own the copyright. Google, create a license, and include the HTML. If you do not own the copyright or if the item is in the public domain, select the appropriate license from rightsstatements.org and include a brief statement such as “In Copyright” followed by the url for the license you chose. |
* If unknown, write “N.D.”
** List separated by semicolons
*** Repeat to provide both temporal and geographic coverage, separate like from like with semicolons