Metadata Requirements
Digital Commonwealth Metadata Requirements
Digital Commonwealth has established a minimum requirement for metadata, but strongly encourages participating institutions to create as rich a description as possible for each contributed resource. The more metadata there are, the more likely the resources will be located and used by the public.
Minimum Requirements
In order to be added to the Digital Commonwealth database, each resource description MUST contain the following two Dublin Core metadata elements. These elements are defined by the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative. Recommended best practice is to use a content standard, thesaurus, or encoding scheme for each element. Digital Commonwealth recommendations follow each required element below:
- Title: AACR2
- Network-accessible identifier: Recommended best practice is to identify the resource by means of a string or number conforming to a formal identification system such as an accession number, a call number, or ISBN
Preferred Metadata Standard
Digital Commonwealth strongly encourages institutions to create metadata descriptions for its resources that are as rich and complete as possible, and that follow appropriate standards and best practices.
Metadata format
Institutions participating in the Digital Commonwealth may use any metadata format they choose as their primary metadata format, but must be able to supply unqualified (simple) Dublin Core metadata for OAI harvesting. Some digital content management solutions (DCMS) such as DSpace, or CONTENTdm offer “turnkey” availability of OAI-compliant metadata. Other DCMS may require that metadata be manipulated in order to comply with OAI standards.The Dublin Core metadata standard consists of 15 elements, all of which are optional and repeatable. As suggested above, Digital Commonwealth recommends that institutions create the most complete descriptions possible for their digital resources. Content standards help ensure the consistency of data contributed for each metadata element. Following is a list of recommended content standards for the 15 Dublin Core metadata elements.
Metadata Content Standards
Content standards help ensure the consistency of data contributed for each metadata element. Following is a list of recommended content standards for the 15 Dublin Core metadata elements.
- Title: AACR2
- Identifier: Recommended best practice is to identify the resource by means of a string or number conforming to a formal identification system such as an accession number, a call number, or ISBN.
- Creator: AACR2
- Subject:
- Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH);
- Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names (TGN);
- Art and Architecture Thesaurus (AAT);
- or Thesaurus for Graphic Materials I and II (TGM I & II)
- Description: free text
- Publisher: AACR2
- Contributor: AACR2
- Date Created: ISO 8601
- Type: select a value from a controlled vocabulary (for example, the DCMI Type vocabulary).
- Format: select a value from a controlled vocabulary (for example, the list of Internet Media Types MIME) defining computer media formats
- Source: reference the resource from which the present resource is derived, by means of a string or number conforming to a formal identification system.
- Language: ISO 639-2 (three-letter alpha codes)
- Relation: Persistent URL of related resource.
- Coverage: spatial location, temporal period, or jurisdiction.
- Rights: Persistent URI linking to rights statement.
- Contributing Institution
For more detailed information:
Dublin Core Metadata Initiative Usage Guide
Collaborative Digitization Program: Dublin Core Metadata Best Practices
Best Practices for OAI Data Provider Implementations and Shareable Metadata,
Digital Library Federation