News from 2006

The DCMI Usage Board has completed an editorial revision of terms in the Dublin Core™ Metadata Element Set, bringing definitions and usage comments into line with the DCMI Abstract Model. Documentation is available in revised Web pages, RDF schemas, and in a response to comments received during the Public Comment period.

While many of the Working Groups chairs are continuing their work as DCMI Community moderators or DCMI Task Group leaders, there have been a number of changes. New Community Moderators are: Ann Apps (DCMI Collection Description Community), Raju Buddharaju (DCMI Preservation Community), Sarah Currier (DCMI Education Community), Matthias Menger (DCMI Environment Community), and Jon Phipps and Emma Tonkin (DCMI Registry Community). New Task Group Leaders are: Muriel Foulonneau and Sarah L. Shreeves (DCMI Collection Description Application Profile Task Group), and Hans Overbeek (DCMI Government Application Profile Task Group). These people have also become members of the DCMI Advisory Board. Pete Johnston (Collection Description), Eric Childress (Date), Stuart Sutton (Education), Sarah Rice (Global Corporate Circle), Heike Neuroth and John Kunze (Preservation) and Rachel Heery (Registry) have stepped down as chairs. The DCMI Directorate thanks the retiring chairs for their efforts in furthering the work of the Dublin Core™ Metadata Initiative and wishes the new Community Moderators and Task Group Leaders success in their new responsibilities.

Over the last two months, DCMI Working Groups have been converting into DCMI Communities and DCMI Task Groups. All groups are listed on the overview page of DCMI's work structure. On the DCMI Contact information page there are now also links to all public DCMI Wikis with contact information of the Wiki managers.

The Program Committee for DC-2007, to be held in Singapore from 27 through 31 August 2007, will be chaired by Abdus Sattar Chaudry of Nanyang Technological University and Stuart Sutton of the University of Washington.

Participants from Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries met in a special session during DC-2006, and adopted a resolution to promote the use of metadata in the Ibero-american community and strengthen the involvement of and co-operation among implementers of Dublin Core™ metadata in that community.

At DCMI meetings in Manzanillo, a new structure for technical work has been discussed and approved. DCMI Working Groups will be restructured as DCMI Communities and DCMI Task Groups. A DCMI Community, with a Web page and mailing list, will serve as a forum for open discussion on special topics or domain applications. A DCMI Task Group will develop specific deliverables such as application profiles on a DCMI wiki. In addition to existing groups, a new community is forming around the topic of social tagging. Further announcements will be made on the DCMI Web site and in DCMI mailing lists over the coming months.

The DCMI Directorate is pleased to announce that DC-2007 will be held in Singapore in the week of 27-31 August 2007, hosted by the National Library Board in cooperation with the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information of Nanyang Technological University. An initial conference Web site has been installed with a number of relevant links. Publication of the Call for Papers is expected in December 2006.

This year's conference, DC-2006, was held 3-6 October 2006 in Manzanillo, Colima, Mexico, and hosted by the University of Colima, with 250 participants from 24 countries. Key topics were model-based interoperability, controlled vocabularies, and practical deployment issues. Presentations are available for download from the conference program.

At the meeting of the DCMI Board of Trustees held in Manzanillo on 7 October 2006, Sam Oh was appointed as the representative of the Korean DCMI Affiliate. At the same meeting, Joseph Busch and Shigeo Sugimoto were appointed for new three-year terms as independent members of the Board of Trustees.

Public Comment was held from 28 August to 25 September 2006 on editorial revisions to labels, definitions and comments of terms in the Dublin Core™ Metadata Element Set. Comments received will be discussed at the DCMI Usage Board meeting in Manzanillo, Mexico, on 30 September 2006, and the results will be finalized over the coming weeks.