Dublin Core

The 15 Dublin Core elements

Every element is optional and may be repeated.

Element	What it describes	Example for a product photo
Title	The name given to the resource	"Arc lounge chair, oak, studio"
Creator	Who is mainly responsible for making it	The photographer
Subject	The topic, usually as keywords or terms from a vocabulary	Lounge chairs; Oak; Living room
Description	An account of the resource, such as a caption or abstract	"Arc lounge chair in natural oak on a grey background"
Publisher	Who makes it available	The brand or the agency
Contributor	Others who contributed	Stylist, retoucher
Date	A date in its lifecycle, usually creation or publication	2026-03-14
Type	The nature or genre of the resource	Still image
Format	The file format or physical medium	image/jpeg
Identifier	An unambiguous reference	An asset ID or a URL
Source	A resource it was derived from	The master TIFF it was exported from
Language	The language of the content	en, sv
Relation	A related resource	The colour variant of the same chair
Coverage	Its place or period	Sweden; Spring 2026 campaign
Rights	Information about rights held in and over it	"© 2026 Nordi AB" or a link to the licence

Simple and qualified Dublin Core

The 15 elements on their own are called simple Dublin Core. DCMI also publishes DCMI Metadata Terms, a larger vocabulary that refines the elements (created, modified and available as kinds of date; spatial and temporal as kinds of coverage; license and rightsHolder alongside rights) and adds encoding schemes such as ISO 8601 for dates and BCP 47 language tags. These terms are standardised as ISO 15836-2:2019 and are often written with the prefix dcterms:. Using them is called qualified Dublin Core.

Where Dublin Core appears in DAM work

• Embedded in files. The dc namespace of XMP is Dublin Core: dc:title, dc:description, dc:subject, dc:creator and dc:rights are how most photo and design software stores the caption, keywords, creator and copyright notice.
• Exchanging records. Archives, libraries and public bodies often require Dublin Core records when they take in a collection. A company that donates its historical advertising to a museum, or shares a press archive with a public broadcaster, is usually asked for this format.
• Crosswalks. When migrating from one system to another, mapping both schemas to Dublin Core first shows which fields correspond, which are missing and which need splitting.
• Schema design. The 15 elements are a checklist. A marketing schema rarely needs all of them, but it is worth deciding consciously where creator, rights, language and relations are recorded.

Common mistakes with Dublin Core

• Treating it as a complete schema. Dublin Core says "subject" but not which product line, region or campaign. Marketing libraries need specific fields and a controlled vocabulary on top of it.
• Mixing creator, publisher and contributor. The photographer is the creator, the brand that releases the image is the publisher, and the retoucher is a contributor. Putting all three in one field makes the record useless for credits.
• Free-form dates. "March 26" or "Q1" cannot be sorted or filtered. Use ISO 8601 dates such as 2026-03-14.
• Rights as a yes/no. The rights element holds a statement or a link, not a permission. Licence conditions need structured usage rights to be checked by software.

Dublin Core in Freedam

Freedam's own fields cover most of the Dublin Core elements, and administrators can add the rest:

• On upload, the XMP Dublin Core properties dc:title, dc:description, dc:subject, dc:creator and dc:rights in images and videos fill the asset's title (when none was set at upload), description, keywords, creator and copyright fields.
• Other elements map to existing data: Format to the file format on the Technical tab, Identifier to the asset ID (GAID) shown under the title, Date to the capture date, and Relation to linked assets.
• Administrators can add fields to each asset class for the remaining elements, such as publisher, contributor or coverage, as text, date or vocabulary fields. A vocabulary field can be marked as a language field for Language. See metadata definitions.
• The CSV metadata export lists the asset ID, title, description, creator, copyright, keywords, capture date, location and every custom field.

Frequently asked questions

What are the 15 Dublin Core elements?

Title, creator, subject, description, publisher, contributor, date, type, format, identifier, source, language, relation, coverage and rights.

Is Dublin Core still used?

Yes. It is the basis of the dc namespace in XMP, which almost every image carries, and archives, libraries and open data portals still exchange records in it. Most organisations use it as a baseline and add more specific fields.

What is the difference between Dublin Core and IPTC?

Dublin Core is general and describes any resource. IPTC photo metadata is specific to images, with fields such as credit line, location shown and model release status. IPTC reuses several Dublin Core properties in XMP for its title, description, keywords, creator and copyright notice.