One-to-one principle of the Dublin Core: application in Catalan university repositories of special and heritage collections
Abstract
The One-to-One Principle of the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative aims to ensure distinct descriptions for conceptually different entities, such as originals and their digital versions. This study examines the application of the principle in five Catalan university repositories with special collections, analysing a random sample of 100 records across fields such as type, format, date, author, source, relation, and publisher. The results reveal frequent violations of the principle, mainly due to the blending of metadata for originals and digitised versions and inconsistencies in field usage. These findings underscore both the theoretical and practical challenges of applying Dublin Core correctly, and the need for clearer guidance and better metadata practices to support semantic clarity and interoperability.
Full text
One-to-one principle of the Dublin Core: application in Catalan university repositories of special and heritage collections Rubén Alcaraz-Martínez, Andreu Sulé Duesa and Marina Salse Rovira Departament de Biblioteconomia, Documentació i Comunicació Audiovisual, Universitat de Barcelona (Meta)data at the Core: Bridging Human Knowledge and AI Innovation DCMI Conference 2025
One-to-one principle of the Dublin Core: application in Catalan university repositories of special and heritage collections. Rubén Alcaraz-Martínez, Andreu Sulé Duesa, Marina Salse Rovira XXIII DCMI Conference 2025, Barcelona. Introduction: 1:1 principle 1/2 The One-to-One Principle ensures distinct descriptions for conceptually different entities (e.g., original and digital versions). “The One-to-One Principle says that conceptually distinct entities, such as a painting and a digital image of the painting, should be described by conceptually distinct descriptions. The principle was formulated in the early years of Dublin Core in order to draw attention to, and challenge, the widespread practice of creating metadata that pragmatically conflated elements descriptive of conceptually distinct resources into a single record.” 2
One-to-one principle of the Dublin Core: application in Catalan university repositories of special and heritage collections. Rubén Alcaraz-Martínez, Andreu Sulé Duesa, Marina Salse Rovira XXIII DCMI Conference 2025, Barcelona. Introduction: 1:1 principle 2/2 Painting Picture One-to-One Principle 3
One-to-one principle of the Dublin Core: application in Catalan university repositories of special and heritage collections. Rubén Alcaraz-Martínez, Andreu Sulé Duesa, Marina Salse Rovira XXIII DCMI Conference 2025, Barcelona. Introduction: challenges Despite RDF advancements, applying the principle remains challenging in practice. —Difficulties associated with a deep understanding of the principle. —Practical issues related to its implementation. —Certain technological limitations linked to the software used for the management of digital collections in GLAM environments. 4
One-to-one principle of the Dublin Core: application in Catalan university repositories of special and heritage collections. Rubén Alcaraz-Martínez, Andreu Sulé Duesa, Marina Salse Rovira XXIII DCMI Conference 2025, Barcelona. Objectives —Main: to identify the current status of this principle in Catalonia, highlighting possible violations, approaches, or implemented solutions. —Secondary: to assess the challenges arising from the one-to-one principle in the context of interoperability between the university repositories analysed and the Catalònica aggregator. 5
One-to-one principle of the Dublin Core: application in Catalan university repositories of special and heritage collections. Rubén Alcaraz-Martínez, Andreu Sulé Duesa, Marina Salse Rovira XXIII DCMI Conference 2025, Barcelona. Methodology 1/2 —Literature review to identify problematic DC elements. —5 university repositories with special collections are taken as a reference. ―Universitat de Barcelona. Biblioteca Patrimonial Digital (BiPaDi) (CONTENTdm 7.0.77.0) ―Universitat de Lleida. Repositori Fons Especials (DSpace 5.10) ―Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. UPCommons -Fons patrimonials (DSpace 6.4) ―Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Dipòsit Digital de Documents Fons patrimonial (Invenio 1.1.6) ―Universitat de Girona. DUGiFonsespecials (DSpace 5.6) 6
One-to-one principle of the Dublin Core: application in Catalan university repositories of special and heritage collections. Rubén Alcaraz-Martínez, Andreu Sulé Duesa, Marina Salse Rovira XXIII DCMI Conference 2025, Barcelona. Methodology 2/2 —Random sample of 20 records from each repository. —Analysed in the original repository and compared with the version collected by Catalònica. —Elements analysed: 7 dc:type dc:source dc:format dc:relation dc:date dc:publisher dc:creator
One-to-one principle of the Dublin Core: application in Catalan university repositories of special and heritage collections. Rubén Alcaraz-Martínez, Andreu Sulé Duesa, Marina Salse Rovira XXIII DCMI Conference 2025, Barcelona. Results —Frequent violations of the One-to-One Principle due to metadata blending. —Inconsistent use of elements like dc:date, dc:format, and dc:publisher. —Catalònica flattens records, reducing semantic expressiveness. —Language inconsistencies and lack of URIs observed. —Repositories vary in adherence and use of qualified elements. 8
One-to-one principle of the Dublin Core: application in Catalan university repositories of special and heritage collections. Rubén Alcaraz-Martínez, Andreu Sulé Duesa, Marina Salse Rovira XXIII DCMI Conference 2025, Barcelona. Results: common violations of the one-to-one principle —Mixing metadata of original and digital versions in a single record. —Inconsistent use of date elements (e.g., dcterms:created vs. dcterms:issued). —Use of dc:format for both physical and digital formats. —dc:publisher used for both original and digitised entities. —Loss of qualified elements when aggregated by Catalònica. 9