This study examines Dublin Core (DC) metadata semantics drawn from the perspectives and experiences of cataloguing and metadata professionals. The study ascertains the extent of difficulty in applying the DC metadata elements encountered by these professionals and examines factors engendering such difficulties during the metadata application process. Comments drawn from the survey participants (n = 141) show that conceptual ambiguities (41%) and semantic overlaps (45%) of the surveyed DC metadata elements are the most frequently cited factors causing difficulty and confusion, in turn leading to variant interpretations of DC metadata elements. This has the potential to bring forth inconsistent and inaccurate applications and implementation of the DC standard across institutions which can directly affect semantic interoperability across digital repositories. The high degree of difficulty (55.3%) engendered by the Relation field indicates that further examination of this element is needed.
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J.R. Park , Language-related open archives: impact on scholarly communities and academic librarianship, E-JASL: The Electronic Journal of Academic and Special Librarianship5(2-3) http://southernlibrarianship.icaap.org/content/v05n02/park_j01.html (accessed 15 April 2009).
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J.R. Park , Semantic interoperability and metadata quality: an analysis of metadata item records of digital image collections, Knowledge Organization33(1) (2006) 20-34.
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M. Khoo, J.R. Park and X. Lin, The user-centered design of a non-specialist metadata tool and interface for the Internet Public Library, Proceedings of the American Society for Information Science and Technology (2009).
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J.R. Park, Metadata quality in digital repositories: a survey of the current state of the art, Cataloging and Classification Quarterly47(3) (2009) 213-28.
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L.C. Howarth , Designing a common namespace for searching metadata-enabled knowledge repositories: an international perspective, Cataloging and Classification Quarterly37(1-2) (2003) 173-85.
15.
J.R. Park, Semantic mapping of Dublin Core metadata element names and their definitions (Unpublished manuscript, 2006).
16.
M. Zeng, Metadata quality study for the National Science Digital Library (NSDL) metadata repository, Presented paper at the Research and Teaching Talk Series (Information Science and Technology, Drexel University, 2006)
17.
Y. Bui and J.R. Park, An assessment of metadata quality: a case study of the National Science Digital Library metadata repository. In: H. Moukdad (ed.), Information Science Revisited: Approaches to Innovation , CAIS/ACSI Proceedings of the 2006 annual conference of the Canadian Association for Information Science (Toronto, Ontario, 2006). Available at: www.cais-acsi.ca/proceedings/2006/bui_2006.pdf (accessed 20 February 2009).
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L. Sokvitne, An evaluation of the effectiveness of current Dublin Core metadata for retrieval (Victorian Association for Library Automation, 2000). Available at: www.vala.org.au/vala2000/2000pdf/Sokvitne.PDF (accessed 20 February 2009).
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J. Heflin and J. Hendler, Semantic interoperability on the Web. In: Proceedings of Extreme Markup Languages (Graphic Communications Association, 2000). Available at: www.cs.umd.edu/projects/plus/SHOE/pubs/extreme2000.pdf (accessed 20 February 2009).
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22.
J.R. Park , C. Lu and L. Marion, Cataloging professionals in digital environment: a content analysis of job descriptions, Journal of American Society of Information Science and Technology (Published online, 8 January 2009).
23.
J.R. Park and C. Lu , Metadata professionals: roles and competencies as reflected in job announcements, 2003-2006, Cataloging and Classification Quarterly47(2) (2009) 145-60.
24.
J.R. Park , Hindrances in semantic mapping among metadata schemes: a linguistic perspective, Journal of Internet Cataloging , 5(3) ( 2002) 59-79.
25.
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28.
J.R. Park (ed.), Special issue on metadata best practices, Journal of Library Metadata (forthcoming).
