Dublin Core in the UW Libraries Information Gateway
The Metadata Implementation Group promotes the use of embedded Dublin Core metadata in the UW Libraries Information Gateway web pages.
The Inktomi search engine (Search the UW Libraries' Web Site) in the Information Gateway is configured to take advantage of the Dublin
Core elements Subject, Description, and Creator. If a search term is
found in one of these fields, the page is ranked higher in search results.
Look in the HTML source of this example to see DC metadata embedded in the
Web page head: Starting Points for Communications Research
Web authors are encouraged to include the following core metadata elements to ensure more effective retrieval of pages and identification of page authorship:
- Subject element (DC.Subject) contains keywords descriptive of the content of your page. Check the Libraries Publications Style Guide Libraries Glossary and Writing Style Conventions (starting page 13) for guidelines on abbreviations and acronyms, Division names, hyphenating such terms as online, etc. Otherwise there is no fixed list of the terms to use. Use terms that are most specific to the content of the page. You may want to list variations of what users might call the service/resource that is described on the Web page, including common typos.
- Description (DC.Description) contains a succinct summary of the content of the page. This paragraph will display as the page summary in the search results list.
- Creator (DC.Creator) contains the name of the individual who created the page and is responsible for maintaining it. Input this as first name, last name in a consistent form.
- Creator Affiliation (DC.Creator.Affiliation) contains the unit of the person maintaining the page. All names should start with University of Washington Libraries followed by the name of the unit. Favor the form of unit name most commonly found on printed lists within the University. Form of name should be the same for all pages referring to the unit.
