The concept of application profiles emerged within the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative as a way to declare which elements from which namespaces are used in a particular application or project. Application profiles are defined as schemas which consist of data elements drawn from one or more namespaces, combined together by implementers, and optimised for a particular local application.

The DCMI Library Application Profile proposes a possible application profile that clarifies the use of the Dublin Core Metadata Element Set in libraries and library-related applications and projects.