Pete Johnston's report of DC2003

My own experience of DC-2003 probably emphasised the ‘workshop’ elements more than the ‘conference’ aspects, and I had a firm sense that activities in Seattle were part of an ongoing process that had existed before the conference and would continue afterwards. There was also a clear sense that Dublin Core as a metadata standard and DCMI as an organisation were situated within a complex landscape, alongside other metadata vocabularies, within the frameworks of other standards and protocols, and the communities and organisations that develop and sustain them. The challenge of ensuring that the deployment of DC is effective is only partly technological. The successful development of truly shared services depends just as much on the ability of those communities and individuals working on standards to come together to articulate, compare and debate the assumptions and expectations that underlie them. [‘Metadata and Interoperability in a Complex World’, Ariadne Issue 37]