ZineCore2 Specification

Metadata specification for the Core2 family of Dublin Core application profiles for describing zines, their creators, holdings, and repositories.

The Four Profiles

Profile	Describes	Required Fields
ZineCore2	Zines and DIY publications	title, creator, subject, genre, date, language, rights
AgentCore2	Creators, contributors, publishers	id, kind, display_name, public
HoldingCore2	Specific copies at repositories	id, repository_id, zine_id
RepoCore2	Libraries, archives, distros	id, name, kind, country

Repository Structure

spec/
├── docs/               # DCAP narratives (human-readable specs)
├── profiles/            # DC TAP CSV files (machine-readable profiles)
├── contexts/            # JSON-LD contexts (semantic mappings)
├── schemas/             # JSON Schemas (validation)
├── types/               # TypeScript type definitions
├── vocabularies/
│   ├── canonical/       # Canonical JSON sources (edit these)
│   └── generated/       # Auto-generated: CSV, SKOS, JSON-LD, Django fixtures
└── scripts/
    └── build-vocabularies.js

Each profile has five synchronized artifacts (the "Four Pillars" + TypeScript):

1. DCAP Narrative (docs/<profile>-profile.md)
2. DC TAP Table (profiles/<profile>-tap.csv)
3. JSON-LD Context (contexts/<profile>-context.jsonld)
4. JSON Schema (schemas/<profile>.schema.json)
5. TypeScript Types (types/<Profile>.d.ts)

Controlled Vocabularies

Eight vocabularies in vocabularies/canonical/:

Vocabulary	Used By
subjects	ZineCore2
genres	ZineCore2
rights_statements	ZineCore2
agent_kinds	AgentCore2
agent_roles	AgentCore2
repo_kinds	RepoCore2
holding_access_statuses	HoldingCore2
holding_distro_statuses	HoldingCore2

Building Vocabularies

Edit canonical sources in vocabularies/canonical/*.json, then regenerate all formats:

node scripts/build-vocabularies.js

This produces CSV, SKOS/Turtle, JSON-LD, and Django fixture formats in vocabularies/generated/.

Always commit both canonical and generated files together.

Schema Validation

npx ajv-cli validate -s schemas/zinecore2.schema.json -d <your-record.json>

Namespaces

• zine: → https://zinecore.org/v2/zine#
• zine-agent: → https://zinecore.org/v2/agent#
• zine-holding: → https://zinecore.org/v2/holding#
• zine-repo: → https://zinecore.org/v2/repo#

All DC mappings use dcterms: (not legacy dc:).

Related Repositories

• ZineCore2/website — Documentation site at zinecore.org
• ZineCore2/server — Django REST API backend