Dublin Core DCMIType Chooser
Some users of Dublin Core choose not to use the DCMIType vocabulary. I find the DCMIType vocabulary deeply integral to good description using the Dublin Core framework. It adds a distinct way to orient the is-ness of the object within the capable description of items via the Dublin Core framework. I admit that it can be confusing at times. For example, I have found some resources which are hard to categorize. I have placed some of these in the following table. The description of the resource is on the left while the ambigious possibilities appear in the right two columns.1
| Object | DCMIType 1 | DCMIType 2 |
|---|---|---|
| Picture made from words | Text | Image |
| Rosetta Stone | Text | PhysicalObject |
| Cassette Tape | Sound | PhysicalObject |
| Moon Rock | PhysicalObject | (I actually think this one is pretty clear) |
| Spatula | PhysicalObject | InteractiveResource |
| Board Game | InteractiveResource | PhysicalObject |
| Uncompiled code | Text | Software |
| Video Game | MovingImage | InteractiveResource |
| ChatBot | Software | InteractiveResource |
| Song on YouTube with just lyrics presented | MovingImage | Collection |
A picture made of words. Reinhard Döhl, “Apfel” (1965). Note that Arabic art also contains many images constructed of text. Credit: Reinhard Döhl
If we follow the 1-to-1 principle in Dublin Core then only one qualified DCMIType should be applied to any specific record. So which one? I have created the following flowchart to guide a person through the process of selecting the most appropriate DCMIType term. Clicking the diagram opens it up within the mermaid editor where the text can be more easily read.
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The definition of note of the DCMIType for
Textstates: “Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.” So I understand that the apple and the worm image would be classified as text. ↩︎
Categories:
Hugh Paterson III
Collaborative Scholar
My research interests include typological patterns in articulatory phonetics; User Experience design in language tools; and graph theory applied to language and linguistic resource discovery.