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Metadata

Jan 23, 20253 min read

Metadata

Bibliography

Pomerantz, J. (2015a). Metadata. The MIT Press.

Pomerantz, J. (2015b). Metadata. The MIT Press.

Notes

Notes

Go to annotation“In the modern era of ubiquitous computing, metadata has become infrastructural, like the electrical grid or the highway system.” (Pomerantz, 2015, p. 4)

The metadata object has it’s roots in the card catalogue, which was invented in France around the time of the French Revolution. The systems before that where clunky.

Go to annotation“Thus the catalog card is atomized along two dimensions: records for individual items, and categories of data shared by all items. And with that atomization along two dimensions, we arrive at databases, and the modern approach to metadata.” (Pomerantz, 2015, p. 7)

→ everything is a database, if you’re brave enough

Metadata can be seen as a kind of map. Go to annotation“Metadata is a means by which the complexity of an object is represented in a simpler form.” (Pomerantz, 2015, p. 9)

Metadata helps us retrieve data, information, knowledge or things. This is called resource discovery in information science. In this, metadata usually tries to capture objective features of a thing. There are different types of metadata:

  • descriptive
  • administrative
  • structural
  • preservation
  • use

Definitions

  • metadata: data about data
  • data: wisdom > knowledge > information > data

Go to annotation“If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around, does it generate information?)” (Pomerantz, 2015, p. 13)

  • data is potential information; work is required to access it
  • books are containers for data
  • aboutness, description: telling something about something
  • subject analysis: finding out what something is about

Go to annotation“Metadata Is a Statement about a Potentially Informative Object” (Pomerantz, 2015, p. 16)

  • resource: potentially informative object
  • statement (triples): subject > predicate > object (Mona Lisa > creator > da Vinci)
  • schema: set of rules what statements are valid
  • element-value pair: ie creator: da Vinci

Go to annotation“What encoding schemes do is dictate how signifiers are constructed.” (Pomerantz, 2015, p. 18)

  • syntax encodings dictate format, ie yyyy-mm-dd
  • controlled vocabularies limit the terms that can be used
  • name authority, ditto, but for names
  • thesaurus: defining the relations between words of a controlled vocabulary

Authority Resources and Encoding Schemes

  • LCSH
  • LCNAF
  • CONA
  • ULAN
  • VIAF
  • Getty Research Institute’s Thesaurus of Geographic Names
  • WordNet
  • Dublin Core
  • VRA Core
  • CDWA
  • CDDB
  • LCC
  • ISBN
  • DOI
  • ISRC
  • GPS
  • ISO 8601
  • ORCID

  • graph: a network of nodes and edges (relations)

  • ontology: formal representation of the things

  • common relations:

    • is a
    • part of
    • instance of
    • part-whole

  • uncontrolled vocabularies: user tags


  • one-to-one: one resource, one record

  • one-to-one-to-one: one resource, one record, one metadata schema

  • internal metadata: within the object, authoritative and static

  • external metadata: flexible but questionable

See also