Element Sets

Many of the metadata fields provided for your items are contained within element sets. Element sets provide standardized metadata categories that enable you to consistently identify, classify, and sort the digital resources in your Omeka Classic installation. Element sets include such things as Dublin Core metadata fields, enabling you to classify the items in your installation according to international standards.

Element sets can contain fields common to all item types (such as "Title"), as well as fields particular to one or several item types. Item types are not bound to one element set: for example, a Dublin Core item type of "Moving Image" is not restricted to elements only from Dublin Core, but can include elements from VRA Core and other element sets.

Your installation may also have elements that are not included in the element sets displayed on this page. For example, user-added elements on Item Types will not be assigned to an element set.

Admin top nav with an arrow pointing to Settings and then to Element Sets

To manage your Element sets in Omeka, select "Settings" in the top navigation bar. In the "Settings" screen, choose the "Element Sets" tab.

You will see a table with all the element sets on your Omeka Classic installation. Each row of the table will show the Name and Description for the element set. To edit an element set, click the "Edit" button under the element set name. To delete an element set, click the "Delete" button (note that you cannot delete the Dublin Core element set).

You should deactivate or uninstall a plugin that adds an element set to this page, rather than deleting it from the installation. Deleting an element set while the related plugin is still active may cause errors. Depending on the plugin, uninstalling it may leave information in these fields, which you can then delete from this page, or leave attached to your items.

First row of table of element sets, showing Dublin Core with edit button but no delete button

To add more standardized element sets to your installation, review our plugin offerings. Two common ones are VRA Core and PBCore.

Other plugins also add metadata fields to this list, such as PDF Text, which creates a new field for holding the text extracted from files.

These element-set names can display on public pages when viewing an item that uses any of their fields. This is the "Show Element Set Headings" setting on the "Appearance" page's "Settings" tab. You can enable or disable this display.

Annotate elements

You may customize descriptions of element set metadata through adding comments to metadata fields. These comments will appear to logged-in users when editing an item, and can help give guidance on how to use a given field. Comments will not appear on your public site.

Edit Dublin Core element set

To add comments to the metadata field descriptions, click on the arrow to the right of the name of the Dublin Core metadata element. Add your comment in the field below. Don't forget to save your changes.

Title element comment being edited, with an arrow to the comment field.

Reorder fields

You may arrange the order in which the fields appear on your site, within each element set. You cannot reorder the element sets themselves.

To arrange the order in which the metadata fields appear on your site, mouse over the name of each element. Your mouse icon will become a hand. Click on the name of the element and drag and drop it to create an order appropriate for your site. Don't forget to save your changes.