DCT2: Dublin Core Type Vocabulary: Subtypes
Working Draft

Dublin Core Metadata Initiative

28 September 2000

This version:<http://lcweb.loc.gov/marc/dc/subtypes-20000928.html>

Previous version: <http://lcweb.loc.gov/marc/dc/subtypes-20000612.html

Editor:Rebecca Guenther <[email protected]>

Status of this document

This document is a proposal to the DC-Type Working Group for the establishment of a more specific list of resource types than that available in the DCT1 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://www.mailbase.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.


DCT1 is a DCMI-maintained enumerated list containing the following possible values.

See DCT1 Type Vocabulary for definitions of type values. DCT 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.


It is proposed that best practice is to repeat the element Resource Type with one value from the broader list (DCT1 Type Vocabulary) and, if applicable and desirable, one value from this list.

Future work:

The Type Working Group needs to accomplish the following:


Related documents:

[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)