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DCMI Collection Description Community

Name: DCMI Collection Description Community
Type: Community Interest Group
Status: Finished
Charter: The DCMI Collection Description Community is a forum for individuals and organisations with an interest in collection-level description and in the use of Dublin Core metadata for that purpose. More specifically, it also provides a forum for discussion of issues related to the implementation of the DCMI Collections Application Profile.
Moderator/Chair: Muriel Foulonneau
Established: 2006-12-18

Forums

Mailing list

Archive:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/DC-COLLECTIONS.html

Wiki:

DCMI Collection Description Application Profile Task Group constituted: 2006-12-18

The development of the Dublin Core™ Collections Application Profile, which is a Dublin Core™ Application Profile for collection-level description, was finalised by the DCMI Collection Description Application Profile Task Group. This Task Group is also reponsible for establishing procedures for the ownership and maintenance of the profile, and of the terms used in the profile.

Background

The DCMI Collection Description Community is a forum for individuals and organisations with an interest in collection-level description and in the use of Dublin Core™ metadata for that purpose.

The term 'collection' can be applied to any aggregation of physical or digital items. It is typically used to refer to collections of physical items, collections of digital surrogates of physical items, collections of 'born-digital' items and catalogues of such collections. Collections are exemplified in the following, non-exhaustive, list:

  • library collections,
  • museum collections,
  • archives,
  • library, museum and archival catalogues,
  • digital archives,
  • Internet directories and subject gateways,
  • Web indexes,
  • collections of text, images, sounds, datasets, software, other material or combinations of these (this includes databases, CD-ROMs and collections of Web resources),
  • other collections of physical items.

The description of collections is becoming increasingly important in the context of networked information services, particularly within the cultural heritage communities, and an important underpinning for developing a collective resource.

The creation of collection descriptions allows the owners or curators of collections to disclose information about their existence and availability to interested parties. Although collection descriptions may take the form of unstructured textual documents, for example a set of Web pages describing a collection, there are significant advantages in describing collections using structured, open and standardised formats. Such machine-readable descriptions enable:

  • users to discover and locate collections of interest,
  • users to perform searches across multiple collections in a controlled way,
  • software to perform such tasks on behalf of users, based on known user preferences.

There are additional advantages where item level catalogues do not exist for collections, as a collection-level description may provide some indication to the remote user of content and coverage.

Documents

Dublin Core™ Collections Application Profile (DCCAP) Documents

The DCMI Usage Board, at their March 2007 meeting, reviewed the Dublin Core™ Collections Application Profile (DCCAP) and agreed that it is conformant. It conforms with the Dublin Core™ Abstract Model, is internally consistent, and is documented according to guidelines.

These links are to the latest, conformant versions of the documents. Previous versions are listed within the `History' section.

Resources

Collections Usage Guidelines: examples of Usage Guidelines and Collection Descriptions in use.

History

DCMI Collection Description Working Group

Task Group Draft Documents

Versions of draft documents during the development of the DCCAP.

An Analytical Model of Collections and their Catalogues
a study carried out by Michael Heaney, University Library Services Directorate, University of Oxford.

The RSLP Collection Description Schema
a collection description schema.

Encoded Archival Description
an SGML/XML DTD for the encoding of finding aids which describe archival and manuscript collections.

D-Lib Magazine, September 2000
a special issue devoted to collection level description.

NISO Metasearch Initiative.

Users and Information Resources: An Extension of the Analytical Model of Collections and their Catalogues into Usage and Transactions
a study undertaken on behalf of UKOLN by Michael Heaney, Oxford University Library Services, University of Oxford.