Metadata
The term "meta" comes from a Greek word that denotes something of a higher or more fundamental nature. Metadata, then, is data about other data.
The term refers to any data used to aid the identification, description and location of networked electronic resources
Defining Metadata
Does data about data mean anything?
Librarians equate it with a complete bibliographic record
Information technologists equate it to database schema or definitions of the data elements
Archivists include context information, restrictions and access terms, index terms, etc.
Bibliographic Metadata
Providing a description of the information package along with other information necessary for management and preservation
EncodingProviding access to this description
Predominantly discovery and retrieval
Encoding
Surrogate records are encoded by assigning tags, letter, or words
Why encode? For display Provide access Integration of surrogate Management
Beyond Discovery and Retrieval
Gilliland-Swetland (1998) explains “metadata also documents how that objects behaves, its functions and use, relationship to other objects and how it should be managed”.
Definition proposed by Cunningham
Structured information that describes and/or
allows us to find, manage, control, understand or preserve other information over time.
Different Communities ….Different Metadata
Developers of the Interoperabilty of Data in E-Commerce Systems (indecs) ideintified metadata for protecting intellectual property rights of creators and publishers.
The Research Library Group’s Working Group on Preservation Issues of Metadata identified metadata for “digital master files that have preservation-based intent”.
Metadata to Information Technologists
The data that defines the data elements in a table
Data that controls or explains other dataSomething that is not part of the bit stream of
a record but needed to understand the data in the record
One systems metadata is another systems data
Source of Metadata
Automatically generatedSupplied by creator of electronic resourceSupplied by 3rd party
Dublin Core
Metadata to improve information retrieval of internet resources
Developed predominantly by the bibliographic community. Elements similar to bibliographic surrogate
Characteristics of Dublin Core
SimplicitySemantic Interoperability International Consensus Extensibility Metadata Modularity on the Web
Dublin Core Elements
Content Coverage Description Type Relation Source Subject Title
Intellectual Property
Contributor Creator Publisher Rights
Resource Description Framework(RDF)
RDF provides interoperability between applications that exchange machine-understandable information on the Web
XML Example
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?> <!DOCTYPE FAQ SYSTEM "FAQ.DTD"> <FAQ>
<INFO> <SUBJECT> XML </SUBJECT>
<AUTHOR> Lars Marius Garshol</AUTHOR>
<EMAIL> [email protected] </EMAIL> <VERSION> 1.0 </VERSION>
<DATE> 20.jun.97 </DATE>
</INFO> <PART NO="1"> <Q NO="1"> <QTEXT>What is XML?</QTEXT> <A>SGML light.</A> </Q> ...</PART>
</FAQ>
Electronic Records Metadata Project
Functional Requirements for Evidence in Recordkeeping
The SPIRT Metadata Project VERSGILS - and the AGLSOAISInterPares
Open Archival Information Systems
Figure 4‑12: Information Object Taxonomy
InformationObjectContent
InformationPackagingInformation
PreservationDescriptionInformation
DescriptiveInformation
. . .
Preservation Description
PreservationDescriptionInformation
ReferenceInformationProvenanceInformation
ContextInformation
FixityInformation
Table 4‑1: Examples of PDI Types Content
Information Type
Reference Provenance Context Fixity
Space Science Data
Object identifierJournal reference Mission, instrument, title, attribute set
Instrument description Processing history Sensor description Instrument Instrument mode Decommutation map Software interface specification
Calibration history Related data sets Mission Funding history
CRC Checksum Reed-Solomon coding
Digital Library
Collections
Bibliographic description Persistent identifier
For scanned collections: metadata about the digitisation process pointer to master version For born-digital publications: pointer to the digital original Metadata about the preservation process: pointers to earlier versions of the collection item change history
Pointers to related documents in original environment at the time of publication
Digital signature Checksum Authenticity indicator
SoftwarePackage
Name Author/Originator Version number Serial number
Revision history License holder Registration Copyright
Help file User guide Related software Language
Certificate Checksum Encryption CRC
records
datafiles
currenttechnical context
provenanceoriginal technicalcontext
form andstructure
activities
Strategy,methods
requirements,rules
simplified datamodel
InterPares Preservation Model
Metadata Facts to Remember
Metadata does not have to be digital
Metadata relates to more than the description of an object.
Metadata can come from a variety of sources
Metadata continue to accrue during the life of an information object or system.
One information object's metadata can simultaneously be another information object's data. (Anne Gilliland-Swetland, Setting the Stage)
Developing Metadata Schemes
Identify the purpose of the metadata modelLevel of specificity of the elementsIdentify resourcesInfrastructure - who will supply it?What type of information package is it?Who will use the metadata?Existing metadata models
Other Sources
Introduction to Metadata: Pathways to Digital Information. http://www.getty.edu/gri/standard/intrometadata/index.htm
CLIR Reports http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/reports.html Digital Libraries: Metadata Resources
http://www.ifla.org/II/metadata.htm Australian Government Locator Service (AGLS) Metadata
Standard. http://www.naa.gov.au/recordkeeping/gov_online/agls/summary.html
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