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The Dzaleka Metadata Standard (DMS) is an open-source metadata specification and Python toolkit designed to preserve and share digital heritage from Dzaleka Refugee Camp in Malawi. It provides a standardised, Dublin Core-compatible schema for heritage items — stories, photos, documents, audio, events, and more — along with a full CLI and local web interface for creating, validating, and exporting records.

Quick Start

Create your first heritage metadata record in minutes

Installation

Install the DMS CLI tools on your system

Field Guide

Detailed definitions for every schema field

CLI Reference

Complete reference for all DMS commands

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What DMS provides

Metadata schema

A machine-readable JSON Schema (Draft 2020-12) with 15 fields based on Dublin Core, available in JSON, YAML, and JSON-LD formats.

CLI toolkit

Commands for creating, validating, searching, converting, and exporting heritage metadata records from the terminal.

Web UI (DMS Vault)

A local web interface for building and managing records without touching the terminal — with live validation feedback.

Linked data export

Export records as JSON-LD mapped to FOAF, Dublin Core, Schema.org, and W3C Geo for semantic web publishing.

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Get started in three steps

1

Install DMS

Clone the repository and install the CLI tools with pip.
git clone https://github.com/Dzaleka-Connect/Dzaleka-Metadata-Standard.git
cd dzaleka-metadata-standard
pip install -e .
2

Create your first record

Run the interactive wizard or launch the web UI to create a metadata record.
# Interactive terminal wizard
dms init --type story

# Or launch the local web UI
dms web --port 8080 --dir records/
3

Validate and export

Validate your record against the schema and export it for sharing.
dms validate records/my-story.json
dms export records/my-story.json

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Supported heritage types

DMS supports ten categories of heritage content: story, photo, document, audio, video, event, map, artwork, site, and poem — each mapping to Dublin Core for broad interoperability.
All DMS records conform to the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative and are compatible with linked data systems via the included JSON-LD context.