Study of Dublin Core

Boutsaba JanetvilayDrexel U. - INFO 662 Final Project

Introduction

Studied three university library digital collections

Examined their usage of Dublin Core elements (completeness & accuracy)

Found factors of flexibility and interoperability problem of collections

Discovered errors and inconsistency in all three collections

Research questions

What DC elements are most commonly used?

How completely and accurately is Dublin Core used in these three collections?

How flexible is DC with small local collection?

Local elements and interoperability?

Methods Three digital collections randomly selected from DC registry

Selected for their easy to use and university collection criteria

Examined their use of standards, controlled vocabulary, quality (completeness, accuracy, and consistency

Three digital library collections California Underground Railroad of Sacramento State University Digital Archive http://digital.lib.csus.edu/curr/

University of Washington Digital Collectionshttp://content.lib.washington.edu/

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign – University Library http://images.library.illinois.edu/projects/tdc/

California Underground Railroad of SSU Digital Archive Item

CURR of SSU Digital Archive

Found most incomplete, inaccurate DC metadata used in collection

Has 9 DC elements and 2 local notes

In consistency with term used of subject, location names, format, and type

Interoperability indicated major problem

University of Washington Digital Collections Item

University of Washington Digital Collections

Extensive use of local notes Indication of complete and consistent

DC guides and standards statement is provided on the website

Used Controlled Vocabulary (LCTGM & LCSH)

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Item

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Provided information for instructional use for k-12 teacher

Heavily emphasize on rights and coverage of DC elements

10 out of 15 DC elements Most complete and consistent

Dublin Core Elements expected to find in collections

Title Creator Subject Description Publisher Contributor Date Type

Format Identifier Source Language Relation Coverage Rights

Relevant Elements to DCLocal/Social Terms Used as compare to DC or Crosswalk Map

DC CURR UWDC UIUC

Title   Title Title Title

Creator     Photographer Author/Creator

Subject   Keyword Subject (LCSH & LCTGM) Subject/Keywords

Description     Physical Description Description

Publisher       Collection Publisher

Contributor     Contributor  

Date   Date Date?Image Date  

Type   Resource type Image type/Object Type  

Format   Digital Format    

Identifier   CURR Identifier Order Number/Image No. Resource Identifier

Source   Source   Source

Language   Language    

Relation       Further Information

Coverage     Region/Location Depicted Coverage/Year

Rights     Rights Rights Management Statement

Local Additions   Notes Notes Interpretation

    Digital file Size Digital Collection Lesson Plans/themes

Order Information Learning Standards

Repository Collection Content dm file name

Repository Collection Guide

Digital Reproduction Information

Contact Information

Interoperability

Homegrown metadata as found in “local additions” as part of each digital collection

Hard to retrieve and harvest without consistent information

Created silo collection if not able to network with other system (CURR)

Improving use of DC Standards Find ways to weave in local notes to DC elements to avoid existing in silo

Better understanding of the use of Dublin Core schema and its elements

Create a system to follow and stick to completing accurate data entry

Usage of DC elements

 

California Underground Railroad of Sacramento State

University University of Washington

Digital CollectionsUniversity of Illinois at

Urbana-Champaign

Title  22 22  22 

Creator 1  15  21 

Subject 14  22  21 

Description   21  20 

Publisher   9  21 

Contributor   2   

Date 21  14   

Type 21  13   

Format 19  20   

Identifier 21  19  19 

Source 22  3 17 

Language 22  8   

Relation   21  21 

Coverage 3  15  22 

Rights   2  22 

Findings Total of 66 records examined 22 from each library

Three most commonly used DC elements are title (66), Identifier (59), Subject (57)

Least used are contributor (2) and rights (24)

Results

Need to further education and training on using DC schema

Need to improve and implement metadata tools that would catch all errors of incompleteness, inconsistency and inaccuracy record

DC usage is very much in developmental stage by end user (cataloger)