[Metadatalibrarians] dublin core validation error

[Riley, Jenn]

You'd think this would be easy, wouldn't you? :-) As the lack of responses so far indicates, that's unfortunately not true. The current encoding DC in XML guidelines <http://www.dublincore.org/documents/2003/04/02/dc-xml-guidelines/> (note new ones are under development) do just as you say, wrap dc elements in a <metadata> wrapper in the examples. But note the root element here is <metadata> in the default namespace, whereas the dc elements are all in the DC namespace (<dc:title>, etc.). These guidelines even say the namespace they provide for the wrapper is a fake one that doesn't really exist. The official DC XML schema only defines the 15 elements - it does not define a root element in which they appear. I've always assumed from this that they expect others to define their own container elements and import the dc elements into it. Presumably they assume the DC elements will typically be used in combination with elements from other namespaces. I've never seen this outlined by any of the DC "management" in quite so many words, though. Regardless of which of the various possible and very reasonable reasons why doing it this way is good, why they don't at least provide an option with an "official" container in addition to the more modular approach is beyond me.

In any case, what most people that just need a simple DC record in a form that can be validated by an XML parser do is use the oai_dc container for DC: <http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/oai_dc.xsd>, which defines <oai_dc> as the root (container) element, with the 15 DC elements imported for use within it.

Jenn

========================
Jenn Riley
Metadata Librarian
Digital Library Program
Indiana University - Bloomington
Wells Library W501
(812) 856-5759
www.dlib.indiana.edu

Inquiring Librarian blog: www.inquiringlibrarian.blogspot.com


> >>> Timothy Lepczyk <tlepczyk at wustl.edu> 6/13/2008 4:28 PM >>>
> Hi,
>
>
>
> I tried validating the following record and got an error saying that
> "metadata" is not an element according to the xsd.  The examples I
> looked at on the Dublin Core page all used <metadata> to contain the dc
> elements.  Some assistance would be greatly appreciated.
>
>
>
> Kind regards,
>
>
>
> Tim
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> <metadata
>
>  xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
>
>  xsi:schemaLocation="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/
> http://dublincore.org/schemas/xmls/qdc/dc.xsd"
>
>  xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
>
>  xmlns:dcterms="http://purl.org/dc/terms/">
>
>    <dc:title>A. Whipple and Co's insurance maps, 2nd series, special
> risks.</dc:title>
>
>    <dc:identifier>whi_mo_1876_04_2895_160</dc:identifier>
>
>    <dc:creator>A. Whipple &amp; Co.</dc:creator>
>
>    <dc:subject>Insurance, Fire -- Missouri -- Saint Louis --
> Maps.</dc:subject>
>
>    <dc:subject>Real property -- Missouri -- Saint Louis --
> Maps.</dc:subject>
>
>    <dc:subject>Buildings -- Missouri -- Saint Louis --
> Maps.</dc:subject>
>
>    <dc:subject>Saint Louis (Mo.) -- Maps.</dc:subject>
>
>    <dc:subject>Saint Louis (Mo.) -- Buildings, structures, etc. --
> Maps.</dc:subject>
>
>    <dc:subject>Aubin, C. T.</dc:subject>
>
>    <dc:subject>A. Gast &amp; Co.</dc:subject>
>
>    <dc:description>"Aug. Gast &amp; Co. Lith. St.
> Louis."</dc:description>
>
>    <dc:description>Key on title pages.</dc:description>
>
>    <dc:description>Includes indexes.</dc:description>
>
>    <dc:description>[v. 1.] Plats 1-50  -- [v. 2.] Plat 51-100 -- [v.
> 3.]
> Plats 101-150 -- [v. 4.] Plats 151-200 -- [v. 5.] Plats
> 201-250.</dc:description>
>
>    <dc:date.original>c1872-c1878.</dc:date.original>
>
>    <dc:date.digital>2008</dc:date.digital>
>
>    <dc:relation>St. Louis 19th Century Fire Insurance
> Maps</dc:relation>
>
>    <dc:source> (OCoLC)173276811</dc:source>
>
>    <dc:rights>2008, Washington University in St. Louis, University
> Libraries &amp; Missouri Historical Society Museum.  Data are freely
> accessible.</dc:rights>
>
>    <dc:publisher>Washington University in St. Louis, University
> Libraries &amp; Missouri History Museum</dc:publisher>
>
> </metadata>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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