A Comparative Study of the VRA Core, CDWA and Archaeodata

This article compares three metadata standards in the industry: Archaeodata developed by the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica, VRA Core Categories by Visual Resources Association, and Categories for the Description of Works of Art. The author discusses the backgrounds, definitions, and structures of the three metadata standards, and points out that significant differences exist among these standards in terms of object description, semantics, and structures. These differences may introduce incompatibilities for the museum community in providing cross-databases searching. Results presented in this article can be used as guidelines for future metadata structuring. Some suggestions for “Union Catalog Project of National Digital Archives Program” are also included.