Dublin Core

Dublin Core (DC), it is sometimes incorrectly used Dublincore. It is the minimum metadata standard for the description of digital, especially web sources, that allows easy searching. It was created in 1995 as the first universal format for metadata, describing digital information sources.

It consists of fifteen basic elements, designed so that they can adequately describe the basic common attributes of the most electronics sources from the various fields. The key feature of Dublin Core is its maximum simplicity and comprehension, even for laymen. It enables description of an information object, directly by its author, who may not be trained in this area. Conversely the format MARC due its complexity can only be used by a trained librarian.

Dublin Core elements are divided into three groups:

• content of the document (title, subject, source…)
• specific instances (date, format, language…)
• copyright to the source (author, editor…)

The disadvantage of the Dublin Core is its lack of flexibility and high simplicity. There are implementations of this standard, e.g. for languages, such as HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language), RDF/XML (Resource Description Framework), etc. The Dublin Core Standard Specification was published in the document RFC 2413. All Dublin Core elements are optional and can be simultaneously, within a single record arbitrary repeated. The basic file can be further extended by new elements – this option is often used in a specific application areas.

The basic standard qualifiers of the Dublin Core were designed in 1997 to further soften and refine the meaning of the description of the certain element and to provide users with greater flexibility. The goal is to improve the process of searching information sources in specific application areas.

How to use Dublin Core standard in practice?

Dublin Core Standard is used for improving the metadata quality of electronic documents with to facilitate and improve them in the search.