Ray Denenberg, Library of Congress wrote:

> From: "Thomas G. Habing" <[log in to unmask]>
>
>>Just as a point of information DC does define an audience term:
>>
>>   http://www.dublincore.org/documents/dcmi-terms/#audience
>
>
>
>
> So, Tom, could you clarify? (I'm not a DC expert, Rebecca Guenther is here
> in our office and I go to her with questions, but she's off to ALA.)
>
> As I look at that  page, all of these are labelled either "element" or
> "element refinement"  (or encoding scheme or vocabulary term).
>
> The original 15 DC elements are of course labelled "element" .  The others
> are mostly refinements as for example abstract refines description.  However
> there are a few (maybe three) conspicuous elements, outside the holy
> fifteen, that are elements in their own right, "audience" being one as you
> point out.
>
> So this means that DC isn't 15 elements, but now it's 18 (and growing)?

That is correct.  The DC base elements (elements that are not just
refinements of existing elements) has been slowly growing.  In addition
to the original 15, there are now audience, provenance, and
rightsHolder.  Plus, at the last DC meeting in Shanghai some more
additions were approved (pending final approval of the DCMI Directorate
or Board; I'm not sure exactly what their process is).  These include
some elements needed to facilitate collection descriptions and include:
  accrualMethod, accrualPeriodicity, accrualPolicy.

I'm more familiar with the work on collection description, so there
might be other new elements in the pipeline of which I am not aware.

Kind regards,
        Tom

>
> Thanks.
>
> --Ray