ePUB metadata

[Jellby]

Hi all,

I'm considering publishing all the books I've created (and those I make in the future) in ePUB format. Even if there are no full-featured ePUB readers (or none I could find/try), for some like me who likes to hand-craft the (X)HTML of each book, ePUB has the advantage of storing the XHTML and image files unmodified, so there's no need to save the source files, and then the ePUB could be used as a source to editions in other formats.

OK, so my question is, what is the best way to include the publication metadata in the ePUB files? I mean, in particular:

- Having MobileRead appear somewhere. I'm putting it an "publisher" now.

- Adding my name. I have it in the "dc:contributor" element, with "role=bkp" (book producer)

- Stating the source of the original text used for the conversion (Project Gutenberg, Wikimedia, etc.). I put that in the "dc:source" element, of course, but I'm worried that could be seen as a sort of "association" with Project Gutenberg, which is not allowed if the text is modified (and I usually modify it quite a bit).


Do you think this system is OK? Any comments? More data to add?

[Jellby]

Oh, and about the different date "events", I use:

"publication" for the original publication year.
"creation" for the day I create the first version of the ePUB file.
"modification" for the day I made the last change in the ePUB file.

[Hadrien]

Sounds pretty good Jellby. I'd like to see more files using dc:description too. I've added support for this in both our Mobipocket and ePub files on Feedbooks, and it is very nice to have a description displayed in Mobipocket Desktop.

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by Hadrien

Sounds pretty good Jellby. I'd like to see more files using dc:description too. I've added support for this in both our Mobipocket and ePub files on Feedbooks, and it is very nice to have a description displayed in Mobipocket Desktop.

Yes, I'd also like to add dc:description, dc:subject, and dc:type, but I think we need some kind of standard for the last two and a creative writer for the first

[Hadrien]

Originally Posted by Jellby

Yes, I'd also like to add dc:description, dc:subject, and dc:type, but I think we need some kind of standard for the last two and a creative writer for the first

dc:type is usually quite limited: a MIME-type or something like "Text".
For dc:subject, sure, a controlled vocabulary might be better but you can use anything (use multiple dc:subject elements).

dc:rights is useful too, you can describe where the book is in the public domain or include the URI of the license if it's a CC-licensed book.

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by Hadrien

dc:type is usually quite limited: a MIME-type or something like "Text".

Really? What if it's a book with illustrations? Or a picture book with some verses?

Ah, I see... I've found this page. But it looks like almost every ePUB will be "Text".

[Hadrien]

Originally Posted by Jellby

Really? What if it's a book with illustrations? Or a picture book with some verses?

Ah, I see... I've found this page. But it looks like almost every ePUB will be "Text".

Yeah, although you could potentially use a different controlled vocabulary.

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by Hadrien

Yeah, although you could potentially use a different controlled vocabulary.

Apparently, the Dublic Core suggests using multiple Type elements, with as many tags from the "DCMIType vocabulary" as needed (for instance "Text" and "Image" for an illustrated book), and also with tags from other vocabularies:

http://dublincore.org/documents/usag...elements.shtml

But I don't know if the ePUB specification allows multiple <dc:type> tags...

[llasram]

Originally Posted by Jellby

But I don't know if the ePUB specification allows multiple <dc:type> tags...

From the OPF spec:

The metadata or dc-metadata (deprecated) elements may contain any number of instances of any Dublin Core elements. Dublin Core metadata elements may occur in any order; in fact, multiple instances of the same element type (e.g. multiple Dublin Core creator elements) can be interspersed with other metadata elements without change of meaning.

So there you go.

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by llasram

From the OPF spec:

Thanks! That's much better. I saw that it was specifically stated for some elements the possibility of multiple instances, but not for every one.

[Hadrien]

Originally Posted by Jellby

Thanks! That's much better. I saw that it was specifically stated for some elements the possibility of multiple instances, but not for every one.

Yeah, that's very common, actually. I use several dc:subject both in our files and on our webpages (using RDFa).

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by Jellby

Apparently, the Dublic Core suggests using multiple Type elements, with as many tags from the "DCMIType vocabulary" as needed (for instance "Text" and "Image" for an illustrated book), and also with tags from other vocabularies:

http://dublincore.org/documents/usag...elements.shtml

But I don't know if the ePUB specification allows multiple <dc:type> tags...

Multiple types are allowed but both TEXT and IMAGE would be confusing as one is defined to be primarily text while the other is defined to be primarily images (a coffee table book). Which is it?

[Hadrien]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

Multiple types are allowed but both TEXT and IMAGE would be confusing as one is defined to be primarily text while the other is defined to be primarily images (a coffee table book). Which is it?

TEXT most of the time.

[Hadrien]

Aside from the files themselves, I also recommend using RDFa on the webpage of the book to describe it:
For example on Feebooks: http://www.feedbooks.com/book/348
... can be extracted as: http://www.w3.org/2007/08/pyRdfa/ext...true&submit=Go!

[Jellby]

And what about an author's alternative names (pseudonyms, real name...)? Is there any field/way to store them?

For instance, I would put "Mark Twain" as a creator with role="aut" and file-as="Twain, Mark"... but where could I put "Samuel Langhorne Clemens", his real name?