Metadata

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Overview

"A primary reason for building digital collections is to increase access to the resources held by the organization. 
Creating broadly accessible descriptive metadata is a way to maximize access by current users and 
attract new user communities."                   NISO Framework of guidance for building good digital collections

Metadata is data about data. In the context of e-content, a more accurate description of metadata is that it is information structured according to an agreed set of principles to describe an object, will assist and support all stages of the digital content life cycle, enable interoperability and greatly improve access to resources. An object can be either digital, physical or a mixture of both and metadata can be applied to a single object such as a digital image or sound clip, a group of objects such as learning materials, or to a whole entity such as a collection of musical instruments or a website.

Three types of metadata

Broadly speaking, there are three ways in which metadata is used:

for description, so that objects or collections can be distinguished from each other and found efficiently
for administration to support collection management activities such as rights management and preservation
for relationships to describe how different objects and elements of a single object relate to each other (for example, the pages and chapters of a book)

Metadata schema

The digital content life cycle identifies describing your content as the next stage after content creation. While adding metadata at this point is a critical step, metadata can be generated at any stage of the life cycle, and for different purposes. At the creation stage, for example, an image file from a digital camera can automatically generate information about its resolution, compression, and date of capture. New metadata might also be added later in the life cycle through user tagging on the web. If managed well, the metadata created across the whole life cycle adds significant value to the digital content, and help ensure it is efficiently managed, discovered, shared and reused over a very long time.

Different metadata schema have been developed for different materials and different purposes, but share a core of elements that are common in order to support interoperability. These elements have been developed over the years through discussion and debate and have now been accepted as a standard known as the Dublin Core element set, a set of 15 elements for describing a wide range of resources. Careful consideration should be given to the choice of schema, depending on what is most appropriate for the materials and tasks involved. It is also important to think about the terminology that will be used in the schema in order to select the most appropriate thesauri and/or controlled vocabularies as well as the cataloguing standards best suited to the material being described.

Six principles for good metadata

NISO, in its Framework of Guidance for Building Good Digital Collections sets out six principles for good metadata:

Metadata Principle 1: Good metadata conforms to community standards in a way that is appropriate to the materials in the collection, users of the collection, and current and potential future uses of the collection.
Metadata Principle 2: Good metadata supports interoperability.
Metadata Principle 3: Good metadata uses authority control and content standards to describe objects and collocate related objects.
Metadata Principle 4: Good metadata includes a clear statement of the conditions and terms of use for the digital object.
Metadata Principle 5: Good metadata supports the long-term curation and preservation of objects in collections.
Metadata Principle 6: Good metadata records are objects themselves and therefore should have the qualities of good objects, including authority, authenticity, archivability, persistence, and unique identification.

Planning for metadata use

Make It Digital has this advice on planning for use of metadata: An important activity with many and varied aspects to consider in the planning process. Some of the more significant ones to consider are:

Does the organisation require a metadata plan for the entire organisation?
Could various parts of the organisations have different requirements?
Are there areas where requirements overlap?
What happens now and could it be improved?
Is there a need for different metadata for different kinds of content, services and activities?
Where will metadata be stored - with the content and/ or separately?
How will metadata be created – automatically, manually?
Who and how will the metadata be maintained?
Which community will the metadata be shared with?

Read the whole Make It Digital article Describing digital content.

Sources of advice and guidance

Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI)

DCMI

The Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) is an open organisation working on the development of interoperable metadata standards for different elements of the e-content lifecycle and encouraging their adoption by all who create and manage digital content. It is the international focal point for all metadata development work and its members are national or regional organisations acting as focal points for their communities and encouraging the adoption of DC metadata. The UK is represent by the JISC. One of the DCMI's main activities is the development and maintenance of a core set of metadata terms and providing guidance and other resources to assist with their implementation such as this beginners' guideto the Dublin Core.

NISO Framework of guidance for building good digital collections

Although the NISO Framework covers all aspects of digital collection creation and management, it devotes a complete section to the use of metadata building on the six principles outlined above and providing a summary and analysis of the various schema available with links to guidance on their use and applications.

Make It Digital

Make It Digital is New Zealand's one-stop shop for advice and guidance in creating and managing good digital collections. The section on describing digital content covers good practice in the selection and creation of appropriate metadata.

MINERVA

The MINERVA Technical Guidelines also cover all aspects of digital collection management, but also include a section on guidelines on the use of metadata. The guidelines are intended to support work within the European Commission's i2020 Digital Libraries initiative. The section on metadata takes the NISO principles as its basis and discusses the different types of metadata (descriptive, administrative, structural), gives guidance on how they are expected to be used and provides a range of links to standards and other resources to assist with the practicalities.

UKOLN

UKOLN is the UK's centre of excellence in digital information management and provides advice to the UK library, information and cultural heritage communities. It has been closely involved with the development of metadata standards since their inception and has produced a wide range of guidance and support tools to help with implementation.

Further information

DCMI: dublincore.org

Wikipedia on DCMI: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DCMI

MINERVA: www.minervaeurope.org/about/minervaec.htm

NISO: www.niso.org

UKOLN metadata resources: www.ukoln.ac.uk/metadata/

Harvested links to other resources

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