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DCMI Type Working Group

DCT2: Dublin Core™ Type Vocabulary: Subtypes

Working Draft

Dublin Core™ Metadata Initiative

20 April 2001

Editor: Ann Apps < [email protected]>
Previous Editor (who assembled this sub type list) : Rebecca Guenther < [email protected]>

Status of this document: Deprecated
This is previous work by the Type Working Group. It will not be taken forward by DCMI.

This document was a proposal to the DC-Type Working Group for the establishment of a more specific list of resource types than that available in the DCMI Type Vocabulary. The DCMI Type Vocabularies provide a general, cross-domain list of approved terms that may be used as values for the Resource Type element to identify the genre of a resource.

Comments and feedback should be sent to the working group mailing list, < [email protected]>, the archives for which may be browsed at < http://jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/dc-type/> (NOTE, you must be a member of the WG to post messages to the WG) or, alternatively, send your feedback to the Editor of this Working Draft.

DCMI Type Vocabulary is a DCMI-maintained enumerated list containing the following possible values.

  • collection
  • dataset
  • event
  • image
  • interactive resource
  • service
  • software
  • sound
  • text

See DCMI Type Vocabulary for definitions of type values. These values are only used to indicate very broad levels of resource type. Many users have indicated a need for more specific types that may be given as values for the DC Resource Type element. Although many genre/type lists exist for specific applications, no existing general cross-domain list has been identified for this purpose.

Earlier proposals included a hierarchical list so that each term on the more specific list was categorized under one in the more general list. Because of overlap between the more specific terms, that idea has been abandoned in this proposal.

This list is not meant to be exhaustive, but indicates resource types for general applications.

  • Abstract
  • Announcement
  • Archive
  • Article
  • Book
  • Cartographic data
    • Atlas
    • Globe
    • Map
  • Catalog
  • Chat
  • Correspondence
  • Dictionary
  • Editorial
  • Erratum
  • Executable
  • Fiction
    • Drama
    • Novel
    • Poem
  • Form
  • Game
  • Geospatial data
  • Index
  • Journal
  • Magazine
  • Minutes
  • Moving image
  • Multimedia learning object
  • Music (sound)
  • Musical notation
  • Narration (sound)
  • Natural sound
  • Newsletter
  • Newspaper
  • Numeric data
  • Proceedings
  • Review
  • Source code
  • Spectral data
  • Statistical data
  • Still image
  • Illustration
  • Painting
  • Photograph
  • Sculpture
  • Speech
  • TechReport
  • Thesis
  • VR (virtual reality)

It is proposed that best practice is to repeat the element Resource Type with one value from the broader list ( DCMI Type Vocabulary) and, if applicable and desirable, one value from this list. For example:

[1] < DCMI Type Vocabulary> (July 2000)
[2]< Roy Tennant's Resource Type Structuralist Proposal> (July 1997)
[3]< Alexandria Digital Library Object Type Thesaurus> (December 1999)