Following up on DC-2016 in Copenhagen, with its look towards the changing role of metadata in the Second Machine Age, this year's conference will focus on technologies and practices that are advancing how we can create and manage good metadata. Interoperability and openness have been guiding principles of the DCMI community for over twenty years, and these principles have evolved through the development of Semantic Web standards and Linked Open Data. A deluge of new data sources is magnifying the perennial challenge of metadata quality but also inspiring the development of innovative tools, practices, and solutions, the focus of this year's conference.

In conjunction with each conference, the DCMI community holds an Annual Meeting at which DCMI citizens discuss ongoing work in areas such as vocabulary management, website design, and RDF validation. Together, the Conference and Annual Meeting provide opportunities for seasoned professionals, newcomers, students, apprentices, and early career professionals to share knowledge and experience. The meeting is a venue for practitioners in public- and private-sector initiatives to network and compare notes. Following the pattern of last year's conference in Copenhagen, DC-2017 will overlap with the annual meeting of ASIS&T, providing additional opportunities for professional interaction.

These gatherings advance DCMI's mission of promoting the interoperability and harmonization of metadata, from element schemas and Semantic Web vocabularies to application profiles, ontologies, and knowledge organization systems.