DC-Libraries Working Group

Proposal: Version qualifier for Description element

13 April 2002

This proposal is for review by Dublin Core community. It proposes a new element refinement Version for the element DC:Description that is included in the proposed DC-Library Application Profile. This review period is 15 April-11 May 2002.



Proposal: Version (element Description)
Name version
Label Version
Definition Information designating the version or edition of a work.
Comment Includes statements designating an edition or version. This may describe the resource in terms of a number or statement that assists in distinguishing it from other expressions of similar content.
Examples Second edition; Revised version; Version 2.0
Type of term Element refinement
Term qualified Description
Why needed Being able to specify the version or edition of a given work is often critical to successful resource discovery and identification to determine whether a resource is the same as another one. This is particularly important for resources that change frequently.
Proposed status Cross domain; this may be applicable for other applications
Related DCMI terms Relation, except that relation is a pointer to some other resource and is not a descriptor of its version. There is also not necessarily any related item to link to.
Related non-DCMI terms MARC Field 250 (Edition)
Impact on applications Other applications may have defined a local element or qualifier for this because of its general need; this has not been determined. (Earlier suggestions have been to use with DC:Title, but it is not clear if this has ever been used.)
About the proposers

DC-Libraries Application Profile drafting committee discussion Sept. 2001: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/wa.exe?A1=ind0109&L=dc-libraries-ap

See Position paper by Robin Wendler


Best practice: This element refinement would not be repeated.

Issues: This could also be defined as a separate element rather than element refinement, but because of its importance in identification of the resource the benefits of retaining the information when DC-Lib descriptions are "dumbed-down" to simple DC argue for refining an element within the basic 15. Since it is a essentially a descriptor, Description is an appropriate element to refine.