Add or Retrieve Dublin Core Metadata

Adds or retrieves metadata conforming to the Dublin Core Metadata Terms standard, enabling consistent and structured citation and retrieval of R dataset objects.

is.dublincore() checks whether an object inherits from the "dublincore" class.

Usage

as_dublincore(x, type = "bibentry", ...)

dublincore(
  title,
  creator,
  contributor = NULL,
  year = NULL,
  publisher = NULL,
  identifier = NULL,
  subject = NULL,
  type = "DCMITYPE:Dataset",
  dataset_date = NULL,
  language = NULL,
  relation = NULL,
  dataset_format = "application/r-rds",
  rights = NULL,
  datasource = NULL,
  description = NULL,
  coverage = NULL
)

is.dublincore(x)

# S3 method for class 'dublincore'
print(x, ...)

Source

• DCMI Metadata Terms

Arguments

x

An object to test.

type

The resource type. For datasets, use "Dataset". See DCMI Type Vocabulary.

...

Additional metadata fields.

title

A name given to the resource. See dataset_title().

creator

One or more utils::person() objects representing the creator(s). See creator().

contributor

Additional contributors (utils::person()) with optional roles. See contributor().

year

An explicit publication year. If omitted, inferred from dataset_date.

publisher

A character or utils::person() indicating the publishing entity. See publisher().

identifier

A unique persistent identifier (e.g., DOI). See identifier().

subject

A keyword or controlled vocabulary term. See subject() and subject_create().

dataset_date

A publication or release date (Date, POSIXct, or character in YYYY, YYYY-MM-DD, or ISO format).

language

ISO 639-1 language code. See language().

relation

A related resource (e.g., version, paper, or parent dataset). Currently only supports an URI, for example, "https:://doi.org/10.32614/CRAN.package.dataset".

dataset_format

The technical format of the dataset (e.g., MIME type). See dataset_format().

rights

A string describing intellectual property or usage rights. Use a URI like "https://creativecommons.org/public-domain/cc0/".

datasource

A URL or label for the original source of the dataset.

description

A free-text summary of the dataset. See description().

coverage

Geographic or temporal extent (spatial/temporal coverage).

Value

A bibentry object extended with class "bibrecord", storing structured Dublin Core metadata. Use as_dublincore() to extract the metadata in list, tabular, or RDF form.

A logical value: TRUE if x is a Dublin Core metadata record (i.e., inherits from "dublincore"), otherwise FALSE.

Details

The Dublin Core Metadata Element Set (DCMES) is a standardized vocabulary for describing digital and physical resources. It includes 15 core fields and is formally standardized as ISO 15836, IETF RFC 5013, and ANSI/NISO Z39.85.

This function constructs a utils::bibentry() object extended with DCMI terms and is compatible with dataset_df() objects. The resulting metadata can be used for semantic documentation and machine-readable citation.

For compatibility with utils::bibentry(), the dataset_date parameter is automatically used to derive both publication_date and year fields.

See also

Learn more in the vignette: bibrecord

Other bibrecord functions: as_datacite(), bibrecord()

Examples

orange_bibentry <- dublincore(
  title = "Growth of Orange Trees",
  creator = c(
    person(
      given = "N.R.",
      family = "Draper",
      role = "cre",
      comment = c(VIAF = "http://viaf.org/viaf/84585260")
    ),
    person(given = "H", family = "Smith", role = "cre")
  ),
  contributor = person(given = "Antal", family = "Daniel", role = "dtm"),
  publisher = "Wiley",
  datasource = "https://isbnsearch.org/isbn/9780471170822",
  dataset_date = 1998,
  identifier = "https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14917851",
  language = "en",
  description = "The Orange data frame has 35 rows and 3 columns of records
                 of the growth of orange trees."
)

# To inspect structured metadata from a dataset_df object:
as_dublincore(orange_df, type = "list")
#> $title
#> [1] "Growth of Orange Trees"
#> 
#> $creator
#> [1] "N.R. Draper [cre] (VIAF: http://viaf.org/viaf/84585260)"
#> [2] "H Smith [cre]"                                          
#> 
#> $identifier
#> [1] "https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14917851"
#> 
#> $publisher
#> [1] "Wiley"
#> 
#> $subject
#> NULL
#> 
#> $type
#> [1] "DCMITYPE:Dataset"
#> 
#> $contributor
#> [1] "Antal Daniel [dtm]"
#> 
#> $date
#> [1] "1998"
#> 
#> $language
#> [1] "en"
#> 
#> $relation
#> [1] ":unas"
#> 
#> $dataset_format
#> [1] ":unas"
#> 
#> $rights
#> [1] ":tba"
#> 
#> $datasource
#> [1] "https://isbnsearch.org/isbn/9780471170822"
#> 
#> $description
#> [1] "The Orange data frame has 35 rows and 3 columns of records of the growth of orange trees."
#> 
#> $coverage
#> [1] ":unas"
#>