Metadata Structures Manual
From DISMARC Help
The DISMARC metadata structures manual, or simply the manual, provides an in-depth description of the metadata structures used by DISMARC.
Current Version: DISMARC Metadata Structures Manual Release 2
The manual is intended for specialists and should contain everything you ever need to know about the metadata structures used in DISMARC. If this document seems to complicated for you at this time, please try one of the following resources:
DISMARC Metadata (Collections)
If you are interested in viewing the DISMARC metadata fields with data examples attached then have a look at:
The DISMARC Application Profile
Dublin Core
The structure, terminology and even the layout of the DISMARC manual is close to the Dublin Core framework (see for example: http://dublincore.org/documents/dcmi-terms/). So anybody familiar with Dublin Core should be able to understand the DISMARC document and profit from it immidiately. Today, Dublin Core is one of most wide-spread metadata architectures. DISMARC uses qualified Dublin Core and adds a couple of elements, refinements, encoding schemes and terms.
Elements, Refinements ... and more terms
The manual describes several layers of metadata structures: a) the elements and refinements b) encoding schemes and c) the terms of some of the vocabulary encoding schemes
For definitions of these terms, see for example: *http://dublincore.org/documents/usageguide/glossary.shtml or
The elements and refinements are - in short - the fields in which data is stored, the units (sometimes also called aspects) in which information is separated to describe the objects in the DISMARC portal. The elements function among others as the categories to search the DISMARC portal.
Encoding schemes provide instructions how to fill-in database fields, either syntactically by speficying a specific pattern as YYYY-MM-DD or by providing a vocabulary that has to be used in the respective field.
Objects and Collections
DISMARC uses two separate, but similar application profiles to describe single items (or objects) and collections (typically records that describe more than one item or object). The two application profiles are called:
- Object Application Profile (OAP)
- Collection Application Profile (CAP)
Examples for objects are
- a track on a CD
- a single reel to reel tape
Examples for collection are
- a set of Jazz recordings
- a set of 24 tapes that were recorded during the same field trip
- a set of 12 CDs that were collected by the famous collector Harry Brauner
Many large collections have several layers of subcollections, e.g. EMEM, the Music Archive of the Ethnological Museum in Berlin, divides its holdings into three large subcollections: 1) commercial recordings (includes CDs, LPs and other published media) 2) original recordings (includes unique or rare recordings) 3) Phonogramm-Archiv (collection of cylinder recordings)
These collections can be further subdivided in subcollections.
Usually, a single storage media is described as a single object, even if a CD also contains individual tracks. For the differentiation between tracks and whole CDs DISMARC provides the "Entity type" vocabulary (album, track, segment, recording medium, work).
