FAQ Number 11

What is Dublin Core and how and why should it be used?

The Dublin Core is a metadata element set intended to facilitate discovery of electronic resources. Originally conceived for author-generated description of Web resources, it has attracted the attention of formal resource description communities such as museums, libraries, government agencies and commercial organizations.

The key characteristics of the Dublin Core are:

• Simplicity
• Semantic interoperability
• International consensus
• Extensibility
• Modularity

Further Information

• Dublin Core: http://uk.dublincore.org/