MATRIX suggested metadata criteria for compliance with Dublin Core standards.

Tags in red are required for minimal compliance with DC standards. Tags listed in black are optional. Each tag is explained in greater detail on the following pages.

DC Metadata	Description
Title	Name used to represent file in system – usually a name which would be easily recognizable outside of file system
Creator	Who or what organization made the resource. This is not the digitizer or archive/library, but the original creator of the resource.
Subject	List of keywords or phrases providing topical description. DC recommends creating a controlled vocabulary and selecting from that list of words.
Description	Describes content of resource – abstract, table of contents, description of graphical file
Identifier	Unique identification string or number assigned to file – may include URI, URL, DOI, or ISBN
Contributor	Describes person or organization which may contribute to content of file
Publisher	Who is responsible for making the resource available? Can be person, organization, service
Date	Creation date of file represented as YYYY-MM-DD
Relation	References related resources – when possible, use the unique identifier from Identifier tag.
Type	Used to include terms describing categories, functions, or aggregation levels as may be appropriate
Format	Describes the digital file-type or format of the resource. May also describe software and hardware necessary to read and/or display the file. May include size and dimension. DC recommends selecting terms from list of MIME types.
Source	Refers to resource from which the digital resource is derived – may be analog tape, paper book, etc. DC recommends creating numbered list of resources and referring to the list by number for lookup.
Language	Describes the language for presenting the intellectual content of the resource. Recommended practice uses two letter language code from ISO639 followed by two letter country code from ISO 3166. For example, “en” for English, “fr” for French, and “en-uk” for English from the United Kingdom.
Coverage	Describes the scope of content contained in resource – may be a geographic location, period label, date or date range, jurisdiction, county, etc.
Rights	Contains information about rights held in or over the resource. May list rights management information or reference a statement containing the rights information.

TITLE
Label: Title	MARC: 245|a

Definition: Name given to the digital resource by the creator or publisher. Note that if no title exists, supply a name for the digital resource. If the title of the digital resource differs from the title of the original object, put the original title in the Source field.

Mandatory: Yes. Transcribe title, if there is one, from the physical copy of a resource, or enter a title assigned by an agency, or create a title if none exists. A generic name, object type, classification term, numbering system, or descriptive statement used to identify the resource are all acceptable titles, but make the title as descriptive as possible.

Repeatable: Yes. Enter more than one title if necessary for access (i.e., former title, new title, caption title, spine title, collection title, artist’s title, etc.) or if in doubt about what constitutes the title. There may be as many as ten title fields.

Input Guidelines:

1. Omit all initial articles from titles, subtitles, and descriptive titles since these will affect retrieval, sorting, and display. Do NOT begin a title with: the, a, an, le, la, los, el, der, die, das, etc.

2. Always copy titles from the source using the same punctuation that appears on the source.

3. If several items have been assembled into one record, create a title describing the assembled collection.

Examples:

Guinness Book of World Records

Computers and Writing: friend or foe?

Phantom of the Opera, Recording 5, track 7

CREATOR
Label: Creator	MARC: 1xx, 7xx

Definition: Who or what organization made the resource? This is not the digitizer or archive/library, but the original creator of the resource, the people or an organization with primary responsibility for creating the intellectual content of the original resource, if known. For example, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn may be published and edited by several people and companies, but the creator field would list Mark Twain and Samuel Clemens. For entering information about publishers or disseminators of a work, see Publisher field below.

Mandatory: Yes.

Repeatable: Yes. Enter more than one creator if necessary for access (i.e., author, penname, organization) in order of appearance or importance. May enter up to 10 creator fields.

Modifier: Personal name or Corporate name (recommend pull down menus for entry).

Input Guidelines:

1. Personal names should be entered inverted: Surname (s), first name (s), suffix, prefix. If a name consists of several parts, select the element normally used in authority lists, or as it would be listed in the country of origin. If known, add birth and death dates.

2. Enter organization names in full, including such specifics as Incorporated, Limited Liability Partnership, etc.

3. If there is doubt as to how to enter a name, personal or corporate, enter as it appears and do not invert.

4. Unknown. This term is acceptable in this field and should be entered when there is no clear creator, either personal or corporate.

Examples:

Personal Names:

Clemens, Samuel, 1835-1910

Twain, Mark, 1835-1910

Soon Lee Hou

Corporate Names:

Bass Shoes, Inc.

Chicago Historical Society

Walt Disney Company

SUBJECT
Label: Subject	MARC: 6xx

Definition: List of keywords or phrases providing topical description. DC recommends creating a controlled vocabulary and selecting from that list of words. When practical, use controlled vocabularies and established thesauri from sources such as: Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH), Art and Architecture Thesaurus (AAT), Thesaurus for Graphic Materials (TGM)

Mandatory: Yes.

Repeatable: Yes. May enter up to ten subject fields.

Input Guidelines:

1. Use most significant or unique words first and add more general words only as necessary

2. Subjects may come from the title or description field, or elsewhere in the resource.

3. If the subject is a person or organization, enter in Subject field in the same manner as described in Creator field.

DESCRIPTION
Label: Description	MARC: 5xx

Definition: Describes content of resource – abstract, table of contents, description of graphical file.

Mandatory: Yes.

Repeatable: Yes. May enter up to 10 description fields.

Modifier: DC suggests creating modifier in a pull down menu to select Abstract or Freetext.

Input Guidelines:

1. Enter descriptive text, remarks, and comments about the digital object

2. Description can include information not readily covered by other fields, such as provenance, technique, condition, history of the work, etc.

3. Note that physical descriptions of the digital resource (such as file format) should be entered in the Format field and physical descriptions of the original resource (such as dimensions) should be entered in the Source field.

IDENTIFIER
Label: Identifier	MARC: 856, 020, 022, etc.

Definition: Unique identification string or number assigned to file – may include URI, URL, DOI, or ISBN . This field is usually used for off-line resource identification

Mandatory: Yes.

Repeatable: Yes.

Scheme: From pull down menu select: URL; URN; ISBN; ISSN; Accession No.

Input Guidelines:

1. First choice should be URL for resource whenever possible. Only one URL/URN should apply to the digital resource being described.

2. For numbers imported from other institutions or those which are unique within an institution (e.g., accession numbers, unique collection numbers), include the name of the institution along with the number. Name institutions may not be abbreviated: use drop-down menus where needed to prevent retyping.

3. Hyphens in ISSN or ISBN should not be used. Input complete ISSN or ISBN omitting all hyphens

Examples:

URL

http://www.ngsw.org/

[ISBN]:

ISBN 0564739374

[Accession No.]

Chicago Historical Society CHS758.2.318.49

CONTRIBUTOR
Label: Contributor	MARC: 1xx, 7xx

Definition: Describes person or organization that may contribute to the content of a file. This field should contain person or organization, which may be in addition to those in CREATOR field, that made significant intellectual contributions to the original resource but whose contribution is secondary to any person(s) or organization(s) specified in a CREATOR element (e.g., translator, or illustrator).

Mandatory: No.

Repeatable: Yes, up to ten contributor fields.

Modifier: Using a pull down menu, select personal name, corporation, editor, translator, illustrator, compiler, collector, etc.

Input Guidelines:

1. Personal Names should be inverted. If there is confusion about foreign names, enter them as they would appear in their country of origin.

2. Enter corporate names in full as they would appear on letterhead or in formal communication from the corporate entity.

3. If there is doubt as to how to enter a name, personal or corporate, enter as it appears and do not invert.

PUBLISHER
Label: Publisher	MARC: : 260|b

Definition: Who is responsible for making the resource available? This may be a person, an organization, or a service. This field should list the organization or entity that made the digital resource available in its present form. Note that information about the publisher of the original object should be entered in the SOURCE field.

Mandatory: No

Repeatable: Yes. As there may be more than one publisher and/or distributor or more than one organization responsible for making a resource available, each party should be listed in this field.

Modifier: Using a pull down menu, note whether entry is a corporate name or personal name.

Input guidelines:

1. If there is doubt as to which party had which role in creation, enter corporate entity as publisher and personal name as creator.

2. List multiple publishers separately (note that this field is repeatable).

3. Invert personal names.

4. Ignore initial articles such as “the” and enter corporate names in full.

5. If the publisher and the creator are the same, enter the information into both fields.

DATE
Label: Date	MARC: : 260|c

Definition: Creation date of file represented as YYYY-MM-DD. Note that this is the date of creation of the digital file, not the creation of the original resource if the digital file is not the original resource. The date of creation of the original resource is entered in the SOUCE field. This date may be approximated by the submitting entity.

Mandatory: Yes.

Repeatable: Yes; submitting or creating entities may have multiple dates for each file, such as creation date, modification date, etc.

Modifier: When possible, use pull down menus to create conforming modifier standards:

Creation Date digital resource was first created

Current Date of creation for the current form of the resource, if different from Creation date

Modified Date on which resource was last modified

ValidFrom Date from which resource is valid

ValidTo Date after which resource is valid

Input guidelines:

1. Enter eight digit number in the form YYYY-MM-DD

2. If the date is approximate, use a question mark (?) after the date

RELATION
Label: Relation	MARC: 787|n, 787|o

Definition: References related resources – when possible, use the unique identifier from Identifier tag. This field notes the relationship of this resource to another resource, while also noting the identifier of the other resource.

Mandatory: No

Repeatable: Yes.

Modifier: Use the following modifiers to describe the relationship:

IsPartOf	Refers to another file which is part of the current digital resource
HasPart	The current digital resource contains part of another resource
IsVersion of	The current digital resource is a version of another resource
HasVersion	The current digital resource contains a version of another resource
IsFormat Of	The current digital resource is a format of another resource
HasFormat	The current digital resource has a format of another resource
References	The current digital resource references another resource
IsReferencedBy	The current digital resource is referenced by another resource
IsBasedOn	The current digital resource is based on another resource; This may be useful for translations, different generational copies of the same digital resource, etc.
Requires	The current digital resource requires another resource for functioning, delivery, content, etc.
IsRequiredBy	The current digital resource is required by second resource for functioning, delivery, content, etc.
HasSource	The current digital resource has as its source another resource

Input guidelines:

1. Select modifier from a list in a pull down menu.

TYPE
Label: Type	MARC: 655|a

Definition: Used to include terms describing categories, functions, or aggregation levels as may be appropriate. Detail here any category, sub classification, or genre of the digital resource.

Mandatory: No

Repeatable: Yes

Modifier: Text, image, sound, etc.

Input guidelines:

1. Select type from a pull-down menu

FORMAT
Label: Format	MARC: 856

Definition: Describes the digital file-type or format of the resource. May also describe software and hardware necessary to read and/or display the file and may include size and dimension.

Mandatory: Yes.

Repeatable: Yes.

Input guidelines:

1. Enter as text or MIME types from a pull down menu.

2. Include formats for all versions of the digital resource (i.e., thumbnail, access image, master image).

3. Include information here about hardware or software used for image capture; this information should include scanning resolution, compression information, file size, etc.

Examples:

text/html

text/xml

image/jpeg

SOURCE
Label: Source	MARC: 534|n

Definition: Refers to resource from which the digital resource is derived – may be analog tape, paper book, etc. DC recommends creating numbered list of resources or using other standard (ISBN, ISSN, etc) and referring to the list by number for look-up. A date, title, creator, numbered identifier, format, or other information about the original may be entered into the source field to aid in description of the present resource. Note that the SOURCE field is distinguished from the RELATION modifier “IsBasedOn” by the degree of the connection of the current digital resource to the original resource. In practice, most systems repeat information from the SOURCE field in the RELATION field using the “IsBasedOn” modifier, or they enter information into the SOURCE field that does not fit easily into the RELATION field.

Mandatory: No

Repeatable: Yes, although there generally is not more than one source from which the current digital resource is derived.

Examples:

90 minute audio cassette recording of Bob Roberts interviewing tradesmen at Great Tradesmen Show, Cincinnati, January 3, 1988 (described as text)

AB123 .CD45E678 1999 (Call number of original print resource)

LANGUAGE
Label: Language	MARC: 546|a

Definition: Describes the language for presenting the intellectual content of the resource. Recommended practice uses two letter language code from ISO639 followed by two letter country code from ISO 3166. For example, “en” for English, “fr” for French, and “en-uk” for English from the United Kingdom. For visual images, do not include LANGUAGE unless there is significant text in a caption or in the image, as in an image of an advertisement or other text heavy image. If a free text description is necessary to describe the nature of the language in the resource, place this description in the DESCRIPTION field (e.g. French with English translations on opposing pages).

Mandatory: No

Repeatable: Yes. If the resource is in more than one language, list each language.

Examples:

fr [French]

en;fr [English, French]

COVERAGE
Label: Coverage	MARC: 654|a (spatial)

Definition: Describes the special or temporal scope of content contained in resource – may be a geographic location, period label, date or date range, jurisdiction, county, etc.

Mandatory: No

Repeatable: Yes.

Modifiers: Spatial

Schemes: Use text input to detail a description of the coverage of the resource; use Latitude/Longitude coordinates (requires the us of the modifier “spatial”); if available or desired, may also use Ordanance Survey National Grid Reference (OSGB).

Input Guidelines:

1. The COVERAGE field is usually reserved for detailing spatial coverage for indexing maps and map-like resources.

2. If time specific information — temporal details — are already listed in the SUBJECT field, there is no need to repeat them here unless specifically required for understanding the COVERAGE field.

3. If it is necessary to enter a date or date range, use the format specified by theW3 Note available at http://www.w3.org/TR/NOTE-datetime, or as specified in the DATE field. To specify time periods, use headings as specified by the Library of Congress Subject Headings.

RIGHTS MANAGEMENT
Label: Rights	MARC: 506|a

Definition: Contains information about rights held in or over the resource. May list rights management information or reference a statement containing the rights information. Most of then, this field is a URL linking to a rights management statement, or a URL that links to a service providing information on rights management for the resource.

Mandatory: No. The lack of a RIGHTS MANAGEMENT tag does not imply that the resource described is not protected.

Repeatable: Yes.

Input Guidelines:

Usually, the best use of this tag is to incorporate a URL for a rights management statement for the institution, the collection, etc. As an alternative, text can be entered into each tag incorporating the rights management information at the item level.