Dublin Core

The Dublin Core vocabulary, also known as the Dublin Core Metadata Terms (DCMT), is a general purpose metadata vocabulary for describing resources of any type. It was first developed for describing web content in the early days of the World Wide Web. The Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) is responsible for maintaining the Dublin Core vocabulary. In March 1995, in Dublin, Ohio, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications and Online Computer Library Center held a joint workshop to discuss metadata semantics. Initially developed as fifteen terms in 1998 the set of elements has grown over time and in 2008 was redefined as a Resource Description Framework (RDF) vocabulary. Designed with minimal constraints, each Dublin Core element is optional and may be repeated. There is no prescribed order in Dublin Core for presenting or using the elements.