Metadata Formats for Exporting Repository Records

Dublin Core

The Dublin Core standard arose from a 1995 workshop held in Dublin, Ohio. The basic DCMES (Dublin Core Metadata Element Set) involves the 15 elements given below. Each is optional and repeatable, and may appear in any order the creator of the metadata wishes.

Title
Creator
Subject
Description
Publisher
Contributor
Date
Type
Format
Identifier
Source
Language
Relation
Coverage
Rights

The continuing development of Dublin Core is managed by the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI).

Qualified Dublin Core

Qualified Dublin core which takes the 15 simple elements and adds some further levels of detail. Two types of qualifier used are element refinement and encoding Scheme.

DIDL

The Digital Item Declaration Language (DIDL) is a metadata markup standard developed for the accurate description of mutlimedia objects. It was developed by the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) as an ISO standard.

Allinson, Julie & Kelly, Brian (2006) JISC Standards Catalogue: DIDL
http://standards.jisc.ac.uk/catalogue/DIDL.phtml, Accessed 31st Aug 2007

MARC

Originally designed for the electronic description of printed materials in the early 1970s, this schema was expanded to include other materials. Today this is the most common standard format used by bibliographic and library catalogues to exchange information on their contents. Some regional variants of this standard exist (USMARC, UKMARC) which are not always compatible.

Northwestern University Library (2007) MARC Summary
http://staffweb.library.northwestern.edu/dl/metadata/standardsinventory/marcsummary.html, Accessed 31st Aug 2007

METS

METS (Metadata Encoding & Transmission Standard) is maintained by the Netowrk Development and MARC Standards Office of the Library of Congress, who maintain the METS website on its specifics.

MODS

MODS (Metadata Object Description Schema) as an XML schema is "intended to be able to carry selected data from exisiting MARC 21 records, as well as to enable the creation of original resource description records". This schema includes elements of MARC fields and uses language tags, rather than numeric ones. For more information see the Library of Congress's offical MODS website.

References

Knowles, Jackie (2007). RSP Briefing paper: metadata

National Information Standards Organization (2004) Understanding Metadata, Bethesda, NISO Press, 2004, ISBN: 1-880124-62-9
http://www.niso.org/standards/resources/UnderstandingMetadata.pdf, Accessed 31st Aug 2007

Increasing Usage