We are excited to announce that Version 1.1 of PBCore is released. Since the initial publication (April 2005) of the Public Broadcasting Metadata Dictionary–PBCore v1.0, many stations, organizations and information systems have used its 48 elements to describe the intellectual content, property rights, and instantiations/formats of their media items and intellectual properties.
During this last year, the PBCore project was finalizing its XML Schema Definition (XSD). This XSD is the main framework upon which all the PBCore elements, their relationships, vocabulary picklists, and data types are organized and defined. The purpose of building an accurate and meticulous XSD is to ensure that when PBCore compliant metadata descriptions are shared between data systems, the contributing system and the receiving system are both able to “machine read” and faultlessly interpret and display the descriptions.
In the process of creating the PBCore XSD, we determined that enhancements to the underlying structure of PBCore were necessary, resulting in PBCore v1.1. For the most part, these enhancements are related to binding together related metadata elements (such as Title and TitleType) into new “Element Containers.” In a hierarchical arrangement, each Element Container collects and houses associated “child” Elements that are thematically related. Basically, what was a “flat” arrangement of the 48 PBCore elements has become a more structured “hierarchical” model of 53 elements, arranged in 15 containers and 3 sub-containers, all organized under 4 content classes.
The PBCore Website, http://pbcore.org, is now re-edited in support of v1.1 of the metadata elements…
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The PBCore USER GUIDE has been revised and updated to reflect the changes in PBCore v1.1, http://pbcore.org/PBCore/UserGuide.html
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FULL DOCUMENTATION is provided on an element-by-element basis
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A CHEAT SHEET is added as a quick reference guide to using the elements for cataloging
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Different VIEWS offer enhanced “at-a-glance” snapshots of the elements in v1.1:
- Graphical View
- Listed Alphabetically
- Listed by Content Class
- Listed by Obligation to Use (mandatory elements)
- Hierarchies and Element Interdependencies
- Significant CHANGES from PBCore v1.0 to v1.1 are itemized
- SAMPLE METADATA RECORDS for different media types are provided
- CASE EXAMPLES of PBCore Implementations have been researched and posted
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MAPPINGS of PBCore to other metadata standards and schemes are documented
- A CATALOGING TOOL to facilitate data entry and interoperability with other information systems is available
- The PBCore v1.1 XML SCHEMA DEFINITION (XSD) is published
- TRAINING SESSIONS for PBCore (live WebEx and On-Demand) are available
The underlying meaning and attributes of the PBCore elements are not changing. However, their interdependencies and structural arrangements are, along with some modifications to data entry options.
We are confident the improvements in PBCore v1.1 will greatly enhance its usability by Public Broadcasting communities and certainly will improve the precision and interoperability potential in sharing metadata between various information systems.
