dctitle

Dctitle is commonly used as shorthand for the Dublin Core metadata element dc:title, which is part of the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI). The dc:title element records the primary name by which a resource is identified in a metadata record. It is widely used in libraries, archives, museums, and digital repositories to support resource discovery and interoperability across systems.

In practice, dc:title holds a human-readable string that naming authorities or cataloging practices associate with the resource. The value is often language-tagged to support multilingual catalogs, and the element can be repeated to accommodate variants or translations of the title. Subtitles and alternate forms are typically handled within the title value or through related properties such as dc:alternative when a repository’s profile requires them.

DCMI encodes dc:title in multiple representations. In RDF, it appears as the dc:title property (often written as <http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/title>), with language tags as appropriate. In XML schemas and metadata records, the element is named title within the dc namespace. Crosswalks and mappings frequently translate dc:title to equivalent properties in other schemas, enabling interoperability between cataloging systems and web metadata.

Related elements in the Dublin Core set include dc:creator (author), dc:date (publication or creation date), and dc:subject (topic). Together, these elements help describe a resource’s identity, provenance, and context.