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DCMI Type Working Group

Domain Type Lists Survey

Dublin Core™ Metadata Initiative - Type Working Group

05 October 2001

Editor: Ann Apps < [email protected]>

Status of this document: Deprecated
This is previous work by the Type Working Group. It will not be taken forward by DCMI.

This document is a survey of lists of types used within specific domains and by specific implementation projects. It has been assembled from information supplied as a result of requests by the DC-Type Working Group. It is probably not comprehensive because of a limited response from implementors

Comments and feedback should be sent to the working group mailing list, < [email protected]>, the archives for which may be browsed at < http://jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/dc-type.html> (NOTE, you must be a member of the WG to post messages to the WG) or, alternatively, send your feedback to the Editor of this Working Draft.

Qualifiers

  1. Type Qualifier :
    Most implementors do not qualify Resource Type with a type qualifier. Exceptions are Australian Government Information Service who use qualifiers Category, aggregationLevel, documentType, serviceType, and Cooperative Online Resource Catalog (CORC) who use a Note qualifier. DCMI has decided not to recommend a Resource Type qualifier, and so any notes, etc should be included in the dc:description of the resource.
  2. Scheme Qualifier :
    Implementers tend to use their own lists of values for types, developed for their particular applications. These could be accommodated in DC-Type by using a scheme qualifier indicating the URI of the lists's definition.

Domain-specific Type Lists

Note that some of these lists contain terms which are not within the scope of "type" as defined by the DCMI Type Vocabulary. These terms are effectively excluded - only terms within scope are relevant to this survey.

Note that many of the links originally supplied for these Type Lists are no longer active. Thus some links from this page are to projects' main pages.

Arts and Architecture Thesaurus (AAT)

Domain: art, architecture
Reference: http://www.getty.edu/research/tools/vocabulary/aat/index.html

Arts and Humanities Data Service (AHDS)

Domain: arts, humanities
Reference: http://ahds.ac.uk/public/metadata/disc_05.html

In its user guide, AHDS supports the use of a controlled list of types and endorses the earlier list that was the basis for DCMI Type Vocabulary ( http://sunsite.Berkeley.edu/Metadata/types.html. It considers the list of general material descriptors in the Anglo-American Cataloging Rules a potentially useful scheme.

Australian Government Information Service

Domain: federal government
Reference: http://www.naa.gov.au/recordkeeping/gov_online/agls/summary.html

Qualifiers: Category, aggregationLevel, documentType, serviceType

AGLS has its own list of values categorized under agls-document or agls-service, but encourages use of other controlled lists.

Catalog and Index for French Speaking Health Sites (CISMeF)

Domain: health information
Reference: http://www.chu-rouen.fr/documed/typeressource.html

CISMeF has developed its own list of types.

Consortium for the Computer Interchange of Museum Information (CIMI)

Domain: museum information
Reference: http://www.cimi.org/

CIMI determined that the DCMI Type Vocabulary list could be used with 2 additions: Place, Constituent (also called Party). It has used the previous list from the Resource Type and Format Working Group with the additions of:

  • original or surrogate
  • item or collection
  • natural or cultural

Cooperative Online Resource Catalog (CORC)

Domain: general
Reference: http://www.oclc.org/oclc/research/projects/corc/

Qualifier: Note

Dublin Core™ Education Working Group

Domain: education
Reference: http://dublincore.org/groups/education/

The DC-Education Working Group have a proposal for a 'type' vocabulary.

Gateway to Educational Materials (GEM)

Domain: education
Reference: http://www.geminfo.org/Workbench/Metadata/Vocab_Type.html

GEM has developed its own list of types.

IMAFDI Online Thesis/Dissertation

Domain: e-business
Reference: http://www.imafdi.de/imafdie_links

Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH)

Domain: general
Reference: http://lcweb.loc.gov/cds/lcsh.html

Library of Congress Thesaurus for Graphic Materials (LCTGM)

Domain: graphic materials / general
Reference: http://lcweb.loc.gov/rr/print/tgm1 and http://lcweb.loc.gov/rr/print/tgm2

Math Guide Source Types

Domain: mathematical, bibliographic
Reference: http://www.MathGuide.de/info/tools/sourcetype.html

Medical Subject Headings (MESH)

Domain: medical
Reference: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/MBrowser.html

Nordic Metadata Project

Domain: general
Reference: http://linnea.helsinki.fi/meta/

The Nordic Metadata Project uses the following highest level types from DCMI Type Vocabulary with its own subtypes (e.g. Text.Homepage; Image.Moving):

  • text
  • image
  • sound
  • software
  • data
  • interactive
    There may be more than one subtype (e.g. Text.Serial.Magazine; Text.Thesis.Masters).

Resource Discovery Network (RDN)

Domain: general
Reference: http://www.rdn.ac.uk/publications/cat-guide/types/

RDN includes: BIOME (bio-medical); EEVL (engineering); SOSIG (social sciences)

Revised Nomenclature for Museum Cataloging

Domain: museum
Reference: http://www.aaslh.org/publicat.htm

This is a revised and expanded edition of: System for Classifying Man-Made Objects by Robert G. Chenhall

Scout Report Signpost

Domain: general
Reference: http://www.signpost.org/signpost/index.html

The Scout Report has developed its own list of types.

Social Science Information Gateway (SOSIG)

Domain: social science
Reference: http://www.sosig.ac.uk/help/search.html#type

SOSIG has developed its own list of types.

University of Illinois, Grainger Engineering Library, Digital Library Initiative

Domain: bibliographic, engineering
Reference: http://dli.grainger.uiuc.edu/uiLib/uiLib.rdfs

Other Type Lists

These lists have been used as resources by the DC-Type Working Group.

DC Type and Format Working Group

Domain: general
Reference: http://dublincore.org/groups/typeformat

This was the previous working group investigating "type", proposal October 1998.

Resource Type Minimalist Proposal

Domain: general
Reference: http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Metadata/minimalist.html

July 1997

Roy Tennant's Resource Type Structuralist Proposal

Domain: general
Reference: http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Metadata/structuralist.html

July 1997

Andrew Daviel's list of external type vocabularies

Domain: general
Reference: http://andrew.triumf.ca/TYPE.html

July 1997

Alexandria Digital Library Thesaurus of Information Object Types

Domain: general
Reference: http://www.sdc.ucsb.edu/%7Emary/objtype.tes/index.htm

March 1999