Bib info

Elements

1. TITLE Plain text title of the resource
2. CREATOR Person(s) who created this work. Should change with every revision.*
3. SUBJECT This is the same as Category, Should be one of top-level Categories from the Sample Library Info file
4. DESCRIPTION Plain text description of the item. May include an abstract, table of contents, etc.
5. PUBLISHER Organization that put this item together, i.e. University of Bombay, OXFAM, Doctors without Borders
6. CONTRIBUTOR Person who contributed this item, should change every time a new individual revises the item
7. DATE YYYY-MM-DD, YYYY-MM, or YYYY
8. TYPE Basically a MIME Type
9. FORMAT Format information specific to the type, such as 400 X 500 pixels
10. IDENTIFIER ID from external data provider, like a Course ID
11. SOURCE URL to source document
12. LANGUAGE ISO 639-1 codes
13. RELATION Plain text description of how this item may relate to a collection of similar items in the library
14. COVERAGE Period of time, geospatial dimensions, intended age group, etc.
15. RIGHTS URL to license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ -- Default

Notes:
* If you translate, revise, or modify someone else's work, you should change the Creator's title to your own name. Here is a real world scenario why this is important. If I search for "The Black Cat" by Edgar Allan Poe, I want to get back the original work by Edgar Allan Poe that all my friends have read. I should not read to the end of "The Black Cat" to find there is a new ending added by SJ Klein. However, my desire to read Edgar Allan Poe's original work, should not constrict SJ's, or anyone else's, freedom to create a new version. When SJ changes "The Black Cat" he should also change the CREATOR field and make sure the acknowledgements file references Edgar's original work. We could not find a more elegant way to do this without making the format of bib_info much more complex. ---Bryan Berry

* The COPYRIGHT_TYPE is designated by a URL to the appropriate license

• http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ -- Default
• http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/
• http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/
• http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

bib_info File Format

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<dc xmlns:dc="http://dublincore.org/schemas/xmls/simpledc20021212.xsd">
<dc:title>Coliseum in Rome</dc:title>
<dc:creator>Thornton Staples</dc:creator>
<dc:subject>images</dc:subject>
<dc:description>Image of Coliseum in Rome</dc:description>
<dc:publisher>University of Virginia Library</dc:publisher>
<dc:contributor>Bryan Berry</dc:contributor>
<dc:date>2008-01-30</dc:date>
<dc:type>image</dc:type>
<dc:format>image/jpeg</dc:format>
<dc:identifier>ISBN:0385424728</dc:identifier>
<dc:source>http://www.virginia.edu/pictures/</dc:source>
<dc:language>en</dc:language>
<dc:relation>University of Virginia Antiquities Collection</dc:relation>
<dc:coverage>50-100 AD</dc:coverage>
<dc:rights>http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/</dc:rights>
</dc>

Here is a sample bib_info.xml file

Why use XML? The point of bib_info.xml is to make it easy for large-scale repositories like DSpace, Fedora Repository Server, GLOBE, and ARIADNE to serve up .xo bundles. For this reason we chose a simple standard -- Dublin Core encoded in XML -- that plays well with others rather than create our own.

Here are some good links on Metadata and Controlled Vocabularies

• Wikipedia Controlled Vocabularies
• What is a Controlled Vocabulary?
• Cory Doctorow's MetaCrap

Basically, a Controlled Vocabulary is a set of standard values This is pretty important for the Copyright Type, language, and country. Less so for the other elements.