Digital Resource Description (DRD) Application Profile

http://www.natlib.govt.nz/dr/drd.html
Version 0.4 (2004-08-05)
Editor: Douglas Campbell, National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa

Description

Digital Resource Description (DRD) is a lightweight metadata schema for describing and linking to digital objects. It is based on Qualified Dublin Core with local extensions. It is intended for use with simple digital objects as an alternative to more complex schemas such as METS, EAD, and MPEG-21.

The DRD Application Profile merely lists sets of existing terms from external metadata schemas to be combined, so the external metadata schemas should be consulted for individual term usage. Two sets of terms have been defined specifically for this Application Profile: "Digital Resource Terms" and "Digital Resource Role".

Usage Guidelines

No generic user guide is currently available, however guidelines have been developed for Matapihi (an application using DRD) which may be of interest.

Sample records

DRD has been used in two National Library of New Zealand products, both products provide links to view the underlying DRD metadata record for each digital resource description:

• Matapihi - a selection of pictures, sounds and objects from New Zealand’s archives, galleries, libraries and museums.
• Discover - Te Kohinga Taonga - multimedia resources selected for use by New Zealand schools. (NB: Discover uses a prototype version called NLNZDL)

Elements and Element Refinements

• Dublin Core Metadata Element Set - all elements may be used, as per their source definition, all are optional
• Dublin Core Terms - all elements and element refinements with the status of "Recommended" may be used, as per their source definition, all are optional (the status of "Recommended" generally implies the term is considered suitable for a wide range of applications)
• Digital Resource Terms - all element refinements may be used, as per their source definition, all are optional. Digital Resource Terms uses XLink properties - only XLinks of type "simple" are permitted

Encoding Schemes (and Vocabulary Terms)

• Dublin Core Terms - all encoding schemes may be used, as per their source definition, all are optional
• Digital Resource Terms - all encoding schemes may be used, as per their source definition, all are optional
• Digital Resource Role - usable in XLink "arcrole" properties

Encoding Syntax

The preferred syntax for encoding DRD is RDF/XML. An attraction of RDF/XML is the ability to include values both in their encoded form and in human-readable free-text, for example dates encoded using W3CDTF:

<dcterms:created>
  <dcterms:W3CDTF>
    <rdf:value>2000-05-01</rdf:value>
    <rdfs:label>Circa 1st May 2000</rdfs:label>
  </dcterms:W3CDTF>
</dcterms:created>

Note the following implications of using RDF/XML:

• dcterms:URI may be represented using an rdf:resource attribute
• the xlink:href attribute may be replaced with an rdf:resource attribute