Digital Libraries Economy in Europe: Where Metadata Format Initiatives Stand Today?

Theodora Stathoulia
Tehnological and Educational Institute of Thessaloniki

Early in 1996, the European Community focused on the issue of metadata, the creation and the relevant metadata format specifications. Dublin Core as the best known, well-structured metadata format was considered as the basis of the evolution in digital libraries development. That is to say, all initiatives taken were concentrated on the needs of clarifying the possibilities of applying Dublin Core in a wide range of applications such as libraries digital content and information electronic representation. A series of workshops on metadata organized by the DGXIII/E4 established the critical framework of actions in Europe essential in the process of creating a valid format scheme. Conclusions from these workshops have particular interest in the light of current developments in the European projects under the Telematics for Libraries Programme as well as the most recent User-friendly Information Society Programme (IST).

This paper begins by providing some definitions of metadata formats with particular reference to Dublin Core and a brief review of basic initiatives in Europe and projects which provided a standing approach to Dublin Core metadata format. It is argued that first initiatives had a clear objective of exploiting Dublin Core extensively in various applications including Internet and electronic indexing. It is suggested that key terms and practices in the digital libraries initiatives, models and applications should be examined under the scheme of additional themes relating to metadata semantics and search standards. It seems that in the context of the IST programme in Europe with focus to content-centric in a multilingual environment by challenging new ways of representing digital cultural objects additional metadata elements are required.

The paper concludes by drawing some characteristics and aspects of the current situation in the multilingual environment in Europe where the future of metadata creation and preservation should be based on a further agreement between IST programme participants, objectives and strategic applications.