Traditional Chinese medicine literature metadata: A draft technical specification developed by the International Organization for Standardization

Abstract

Currently, there is a lack of international standard for literature metadata in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) domain, which becomes a major obstacle for the indexing and retrieval of TCM literature. In 2013, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) finished the draft technical specification (DTS) "Traditional Chinese medicine literature metadata", which will play an important role in the preservation and utilization of TCM literature resources. In this paper, we articulate the content and characteristics of this DTS, compare it with other related ISO standards, and explain the creativity and necessity of this DTS. © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014.