LIBR 202 – Section 18 – Professor Bolin
Midterm Exam
Patricia Ayame Thomson
Answer to Question # 9
“What is Metadata? What are its characteristics and why is it important?”
In her lecture, Dr. Bolin (2011) describes: “Metadata is the structured data that helps us find other data: it describes it in a way that we can know if we have found what we are looking for” (Lecture 2, Slide 5). In other words, metadata is data that leads to other data. “Meta” is a prefix in most information technology defines as: “An underlying definition or description” (Whatis.com). There are many metadata schemes, and Morville (2005) eloquently describes them as follows: “Metadata has many forms and purposes. Administrative metadata supports document management and workflow. Structural metadata enables single source publishing and flexible display of content. And descriptive metadata permits access and use” (p. 125). Namely, the two metadata schemes librarianship is primarily concerned with are descriptive metadata and subject metadata.
On a similar vein, Morville (2005) enthusiastically explains the idea of meta tags as follows: “The information that you provide in a meta tag is used by search engines to index a page so that someone searching for the kind of information the page contains will be able to find it” (SearchSOA.com). As you can surmise, Morville encourages social tagging, and feels the more descriptive points of view you can accumulate on the metadata, the more it enhances the performance of search engines.
Morville (2005) emphasizes the influence and value of metadata on the global online environment in the following way: “It is metadata’s ability to help people find what they need that has driven a resurgence of interest, from the ontologies of the Semantic Web to the folksonomies of social software” (p. 125). On a positive and inspiring note regarding global relationships and languages, Morville states: “Hopefully, we can use metadata as a boundary object, to foster translation, build shared understanding, and encourage real social progress” (p. 126).
In addition, Dr. Bolin (2011) points out a significant advantage of using metadata as follows: “To facilitate retrieval, but also so that the metadata can be shared” (Lecture 2, Slide 5). Sharing is a salient concept, since we are all using the same online technology and electronic resources globally. Consequently, sharing metadata sounds like the logical, efficient, and time-saving thing to do to enhance retrieval.
As a result, basic standards are needed to establish guidelines, and keep the cataloging and encoding in a uniform, consistent, and accessible format across the board. Until recently, library communities have been using the Machine-Readable Cataloging (MARC) cataloging code.
By 1971, the MARC format had become the national standard for dissemination of bibliographic data and by 1973, and international standard. The updated encoding format effective soon is called RDA, which stands for Resource Description and Access. It was developed by a coalition of libraries and library associations and agencies around the world. (Bolin, 2011, Lecture 2, Slide 5).
The reason why the library community felt the need to create, make updates, and changes to the present cataloging code is primarily to keep up with the rapidly-changing technology. As an example of an update: “In RDA, part of the process of constructing access points is recording the relationship of ‘persons, families, and corporate bodies’ with a work” (Bolin, 2011, Lecture 2, Slide 18).
As Dr. Bolin (2011) explains concisely: “For our purposes, an ‘entity’ is the smallest unit [of information]. Types of information pertaining to entities are attributes, and attributes have values. A record is the ‘set of information about an entity” (Lecture 2, Slide 3). Furthermore, each entity has its own record or metadata. As a result, the more descriptions or metadata are assigned to the entity (in the form of attributes and values,) the more efficiently the system can function to facilitate retrieval. The reason why the tags enhance retrieval for the search engines and electronic resources is because first; the system has more clues to work with to find what the user is looking for, and second; it makes it more efficient for the system to connect relational terms (or the syndetic structure.)
Therefore, whether the search engine is a single access search engine that points to inverted files, or has a better ability to decipher the ambiguity and meaning inherent in language, the mechanism invariably links to the metadata in order to obtain guidance and direction to the information the user requested. They are like sign posts that guide the information retrieval system. In conclusion, it is highly recommended for indexers and catalogers to precisely and exhaustively describe the aboutness of an information entity by assigning detailed and concise attributes and values on each metadata (or record).