December is the time of year to reflect back on the past twelve months. Back in October, I had the chance to visit Pittsburgh for the first time, as well as attend my first Dublin Core metadata conference.

While at the conference, I had the privilege of presenting a paper on the work of a Smithsonian pan-institutional working group, EMDaWG (Embedded Metadata Working Group), in a presentation entitled, The Case for Implementing Core Descriptive Embedded Metadata at the Smithsonian.

The presentation slides are available on SlideShare and the paper is available either through the Dublin Core site, or through the Libraries' Smithsonian Research Online (SRO).

The conference was an excellent opportunity to learn more about the Dublin Core metadata initiative and the community that makes the initiative happen. Dublin Core started with the seed concept of cataloging the web and has evolved into a lingua franca metadata schema used as the basis of other schemas such as VRA Core (Visual Resources Association) and Darwin Core and pioneering work on the Semantic Web.

When not at the conference, I was able to enjoy some Pittsburgh favorites such as a Primanti Bros. sandwich and the Warhol Museum.

—Doug Dunlop