DigitalNZ Metadata Dictionary

What information does DigitalNZ collect?

This document describes the most common fields used in the Digital New Zealand harvesting system. The field names and schema are loosely based on Dublin Core but have been developed over the years to be more flexible and better cater for Digital New Zealand’s wide range of content and varying metadata levels.

Below each field title are three keywords. These words indicate whether the field is required, if it is searchable and whether it can contain multiple values.

Requirement status:

Compulsory - all records harvested into DigitalNZ must have these fields,
Recommended - makes a record considerably more useful and should be provided wherever possible, or
Optional - additional fields available to capture any extra information.

Available through search:

Searchable - this field can be searched using the DigitalNZ search records API.
Not searchable - this field can not be searched.

Single or multi-valued:

Single-valued - this field only has one value. For example, a DigitalNZ item can only have one thumbnail (dnz:thumbnail_url).
Multi-valued - this field can have many values. For example, a DigitalNZ item may be created by several different people (dc:creator).

dnz : category

Compulsory . Searchable . Multi-value.

Explanation:

This field is used for filtering, via tabs, on the Digitalnz.org site. It is also used for the API and possibly other hosted/custom search integrations.

Category	Definition	Usage notes
Images	Image is a primary/major component of resource.	Items can also use other categories such as Newspapers (e.g. images from Paperspast), or Articles (e.g. Kete), or books (e.g. for images from books at NZETC)
Video	Video is a primary/major component of resource.	Items can also use other categories such as Articles (e.g. a video included in a Te Papa Article)
Audio	Audio is a primary/major component of resource.	Items can also be other categories such as Articles (such as Te Ara).
Books	Digitised books in various forms, including ephemeral booklets; or born digital books.	Maybe combined with Images, if the image exists as significant component of an individual item.
Newspapers	Digitised newspapers	Maybe combined with Images, if the image exists as significant component of an individual item.
Manuscripts	Digitised unpublished archival material, such as letters, scrapbooks, diaries etc	Usually discrete collections so doesn’t need additional categories. Use dc_subject to add useful descriptors if not already supplied by content partner (e.g. letters, diaries)
Data	Datasets or unprocessed information. May be raw data, downloadable sets of resources such as map tiles/layers or csv files.	Due to diversity of this set there may be times where it is appropriate to combine, e.g. if maps tiles are available in a usable image format, or e.g. if data has been sourced in bulk from a newspaper collection
Research papers	Individual published outputs of research	Usually discrete collections so doesn’t need additional categories. Do check for Video
Articles	Single items or groups (e.g. journals) of news or opinion, fact or general information. Includes blogs. Not for use for Newspaper articles, use “Newspaper” instead. Examples include guides and reports.	Maybe combined with audio, video or image if there is enough contextual information to warrant it. However if the main focus of the item is the information and the image is only illustrative (i.e. secondary) do not apply the image category. Do utilize the thumbnail if possible.
Archives	For other types of unpublished archival material not covered by Manuscripts etc.	Examples include Archives NZ NZDF Personnel Files
Other	For items that do not fit into existing categories.	Things like interactive web resources, slideshows and any other outlying item types.
Sets	DigitalNZ Sets created by users.	Not strictly an item category, but needed.

dnz : collection

Compulsory . Searchable . Multi-value.

Explanation:

Name of the collection(s) and/or website that the item belongs to. This field can also contain sub-collections or groupings within the main collection. This field is searchable but does not actually get displayed directly on digitalnz.org. A separate (single value) field named 'display_collection' containing the primary top level collection is used for displaying alongside the record and in the collection filter drop downs.

Example(s):

Papers past

Evening post

Grey river argus

Te ao hou

dnz : content_partner

Compulsory . Searchable . Multi-value.

Explanation:

Name of the organisation(s), institution(s), or individual(s) making content available through DigitalNZ. Usually the name of the organisation that has agreed to the DigitalNZ Metadata Contribution Terms.

Example(s):

Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga

Alexander Turnbull Library

dc : description

Compulsory . Searchable . Multi-value.

Explanation:

Descriptive information about the record. Can be a summary, abstract, or any information about the record. In most cases this is limited to 350 characters, except where the provided descriptions are clear abstracts or summaries from trusted sources that are not too much longer than 350 characters.

Example(s):

"The drawing is from Burton Silver's book, `Why Cats Paint: a theory of feline aesthetics'. Published by Heather Busch and Burton Silver, …"

"During the late 1980s, Kiwi inventor John Britten developed and built a revolutionary racing motorcycle. He pursu

dnz : landing_url

Compulsory . Not searchable . Single-value.

Explanation:

An HTTP URL resolving to a landing page for the content.

Example(s):

http://www.nzmuseums.co.nz/index.php?option=com_nstp&task=showDetail&objectContext=&recordIdSet=1075

http://digital.otago.ac.nz/results.php?arguement=s1794_00&focus=Record&submit=GO

dnz : thumbnail_url

Compulsory . Searchable . Single-value.

Explanation:

A URL resolving to a thumbnail of the content for display in search results list. Preferably around 250px wide. If the image is larger than 255px wide or 138px high it will be resized/shrunk on the DigitalNZ website.

Example(s):

http://ndhadeliver.natlib.govt.nz/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE506404&dps_func=thumbnail

http://www.aucklandcity.govt.nz/dbtw-wpd/HeritageImages/Images/AWNt/1939/AWNS_19390215_p044_i001_x.jpg

http://i.tinysrc.mobi/150/http://digital.otago.a

dc : title

Compulsory . Searchable . Single-value.

Explanation:

A name given to the resource or content object being described. If the titles of a series of resources are all identical then some extra information can be appended to the title like a date or identifier so that the titles are more unique.

Example(s):

US forces at Camp McKay store

[Looking east from Ponsonby over Auckland City to harbour,....]

The paleoaustral genus Protodolium Wilckens, 1922 (Mollusca: Gastropoda), and a new species from the Late Cretaceous of Chatham Islands, New Zealand

dnz : usage

Compulsory . Searchable . Multi-value.

Explanation:

Human-understandable label defined by the DigitalNZ project team.

ie CC-BY-NC would have: Share and Modify

No known copyright would have: Share, Modify and Use commercially

If the status of content is not identified by the content provider the value Unknown is used.

Example(s):

dc : creator

Recommended . Searchable . Multi-value.

Explanation:

The name of the person, organisation, institution, service etc who created the content (e.g. the photographer or artist or writer or author). Often this will be the original copyright holder. Where the content is born digital, this may be the creator of the digital file. Where content has been digitised, it is usually the creator of the analogue source.

Example(s):

John Pine Snadden

dc : date

Recommended . Searchable . Multi-value.

Explanation:

Stores date information to be used in the filters/facets. Because it is being used in the filters this information is transformed during harvesting to a computer readable format. DNZ can not currently deal with date ranges, the work around for now is to take the first date of the date range. Also this date must be expressed down to a day, so will default to 1st of the 1st if only a year is specified in the original source.

Example(s):

2011-12-15T00:00:00.000Z

dnz : display_date

Recommended . Not searchable . Single-value.

Explanation:

Stores date information in any format. This field does not have to be computer readable like dc:date so can store any text based date expression.

Example(s):

circa 1960's

920's to 1930's

c1895

15 Jan 1992

dnz : large_thumbnail_url

Recommended . Searchable . Single-value.

Explanation:

A URL resolving to an image which will be resized to 520 px wide and displayed on the DNZ details page. Large thumbs are preferably less than 1Mb in file size and no less than 500px wide. This image will always be resized and cached. Refer to DigitalNZ Metadata Contribution Terms (http://www.digitalnz.org/about/terms-of-use/metadata-contrbution-terms) for the terms that allow for this.

Example(s):

http://www.aucklandcity.govt.nz/dbtw-wpd/HeritageImages/Images/AWNf/1936/AWNS_19360304_p044_i001_b.jpg

http://digital.otago.ac.nz/images/hocken/full/a1023.jpg

dnz : locations

Recommended . Not searchable . Single-value.

Explanation:

This field contains geographical location information including latitude/longitude co-ordinates, text based location info ( ie city/region/street), and details about where the location information comes from (ie "Location provided by Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa")

Example(s):

dnz : placename

Recommended . Searchable . Multi-value.

Explanation:

Human-readable place name. Ideally from a controlled vocabulary such as the New Zealand Gazetteer of Official Placenames ( http://www.linz.govt.nz/placenames/find-names/nz-gazetteer-official-names ) or the Getty Thesaurus of Geographic names.

Example(s):

Castlepoint, Wairarapa, New Zealand

dc : rights

Recommended . Searchable . Single-value.

Explanation:

Rights information. Can be a rights statement explaining the rights of the record or a link to a webpage with more detailed rights information.

Example(s):

dnz : rights_url

Recommended . Not searchable . Multi-value.

Explanation:

An HTTP URL resolving to a rights or terms of use page statement for the resource.

Where records have a rights statement rather than a URL, this is recorded in dc:rights.

Example(s):

http://www.georgegrey.org.nz/TermsAndConditions.aspx#websitecontentandconditionsofreuse

dc : subject

Recommended . Searchable . Multi-value.

Explanation:

Arepeatable field containing keywords about the record content. The harvester will typically split any comma (or similar character) separated lists into separate elements. A harvester may add useful subjects to records to aid findability and grouping if those terms don’t already exist in the data.

Example(s):

Clothing & dress

LB Theory and practice of education

Caring for sick

World War I

dc : type

Recommended . Not searchable . Multi-value.

Explanation:

Terms describing general categories, functions, genres, or aggregation levels for content. This field is one of the main factors used to determine the TYPE search filter (such as memorabilia, magazine, people etc).

Example(s):

MovingImage

StillImage

Thesis

dc : contributor

Optional . Searchable . Multi-value.

Explanation:

If the content comes from an aggregation service this field can optionally provide more context as to the original organisation that provided the content.

Example(s):

School of Biological Sciences

Jordan, Bill

dc : coverage

Optional . Not searchable . Multi-value.

Explanation:

The extent or scope of the content of the resource. Coverage can include spatial (geographical) location or temporal period (a period label, date, or date range).

This is not the primary field for location or date information within DNZ and is mainly used to match existing metadata field names.

DNZ's primary spatial/location field is dnz:location (which holds latitude and longitude co-ord's if available) and dnz:placename for place names as text.

DNZ's primary date fields are dc:date (strict formated date) and dnz:display_date (more flexible text based date information).

Example(s):

Auckland Region (N.Z.)

1980

dc : format

Optional . Searchable . Multi-value.

Explanation:

Contains information about the physical attributes of the item/record. Often used to match an existing field name from the content source.

Example(s):

Watercolour/pencil

112 x 112mm

dc : identifier

Optional . Searchable . Multi-value.

Explanation:

Keeps information like content provider record ID's, ISBN's, serial numbers etc.

Example(s):

KF5-803

dc : language

Optional . Searchable . Multi-value.

Explanation:

Indicates the languages of the resource. Harvested as a language code like "en".

Example(s):

dnz : object

Optional . Not searchable . Multi-value.

Explanation:

This field stores metadata about any objects associated with the item (ie high-res images, pdf's, documents, etc). The following attributes can be stored with each object (where applicable/available):

url, name, type, size, and thumbnail.

Example(s):

dnz : object_url

Optional . Searchable . Single-value.

Explanation:

A single HTTP URL resolving to the resource or content object itself, such as a PDF or image file (where multiple versions exist, use the highest-resolution version).

Example(s):

http://digital.otago.ac.nz/images/specialcollections/full/s1788_3.jpg

http://www.mfe.govt.nz/publications/organisms/royal-commission-gm/definition-genetic-modification.pdf

dc : publisher

Optional . Searchable . Multi-value.

Explanation:

The name of the publisher of the digital object or the original physical object in the case of a digitisation.

Example(s):

Taylor and Francis

dc : relation

Optional . Searchable . Multi-value.

Explanation:

Information about a related resource. It could contain a URL to a related resource or just be the title of a related collection.

Example(s):

K E Niven and Co :Commercial negatives

dc : source

Optional . Not searchable . Multi-value.

Explanation:

Information about where the resource has come from or a reference to another resource from which the content is derived, such as a book in the case of a digitised book.

Example(s):

Amer. fiction, 1774-1910 (microfilm, 1970-1978 ed.), v. 2 (1851-1875), reel R-19, no. 2144A

Archives footage preserved and made available by Archives New Zealand/Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga