Metadata

PMID: 15127510 in eXtensible Markup Language (XML)

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Introduction

See also Digital Libraries Glossary, Open data and Ontologies

Metadata is a set of descriptive data (literally data about data) that is designed to facilitate the discovery and use of resources in digital and print library collections. The three types of designated metadata used are to provide descriptive information of content, structural metadata which gets to the format of materials and administrative metadata which designates copyright information for items in a collection.

Three categories of metadata

Metadata is grouped into three categories:

• Descriptive metadata describes the content of a resource for identification, searching, and retrieval. Examples of this type are the bibliographic information and abstract for a journal article and the coded diagnoses for a patient contained in a medical record.
• Structural metadata describes the architecture and relationships of the different sections of a resource for the purposes of navigation. Examples of this type are the table of contents, page numbers, and index of a journal or the types of reports (laboratory, imaging, consultant) for a patient encounter contained in a medical record.
• Administrative metadata describes technical aspects of an information resource for processing and management. Examples of this type are the publishing information about a printing of an issue of a journal and the privacy, confidentiality and security rules associated with handling a medical record.

• International Conference on Dublin Core and Metadata Applications - Metadata Harmonization: Bridging Languages of Description, Hague, Netherlands, September 21-23, 2011.

Metadata is an increasingly central tool in the current web environment, enabling large-scale, distributed management of resources. Recent years has seen a growth in interaction between previously relatively isolated metadata communities, driven by the need for cross-domain collaboration and exchange. However, metadata standards have not been able to meet the needs of interoperability between independent standardization communities. For this reason the notion of metadata harmonization, defined as interoperability of combinations of metadata specifications, has arisen as a core issue for the future of web-based metadata. Resting at the heart of application profiles, metadata harmonization presents a little understood, but critical challenge in design of languages of description. DC-2011 will explore the conceptual and practical issues of design when the language solution calls for cross-fertilization from different metadata specifications.

• See also NISO http://framework.niso.org/node/24
• Directions in Metadata with Karen Coyle http://vimeo.com/10634042

Metadata standards organizations

• Consolidated Health Informatics (CHI) establishes a portfolio of existing clinical vocabularies and messaging standards enabling federal agencies to build interoperable federal health data systems with private health care information networks. For more information, see http://www.hhs.gov/healthit/chi.html.
• Health Level 7 (HL7). In addition to being a messaging standard, HL7 is an ANSI-accredited SDO, operating in the healthcare arena to create flexible, cost effective approaches, standards, guidelines, methodologies, and related services for interoperability between healthcare information systems. For more information, see http://www.hl7.org.
• The Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) is an organization dedicated to promoting the widespread adoption of interoperable metadata standards and developing specialized metadata vocabularies for describing resources that enable more intelligent information discovery systems. For more information, see http://dublincore.org.
• The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) specifies metadata structures for use on the World Wide Web. Several initiatives that are being explored or developed include the Semantic Web, the Resource Definition Framework and Web Services. For more information, see http://www.w3.org.
• The MedBiquitous Consortium develops information technology standards for medical education and training including metadata standards for medical learning objects. For more information, see http://www.medbiq.org

References

• Chan, Lois Mai & Marcia Lei Zeng (2006). Metadata Interoperability and Standardization – A study of Methodology Part I. In D-Lib Magazine 12(6). http://www.dlib.org/dlib/june06/chan/06chan.html.
• Elings, Mary W. & Gunter Waibel (2007). Metadata for All: Descriptive Standards and Metadata Sharing across Libraries, Archives and Museums. In First Monday, 12(3). http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue12_3/elings/index.html
• Library of Congress. 2007a. Library of Congress Authorities. Library of Congress (LOC). http://authorities.loc.gov/.
• Library of Congress. 2007b. Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH). Library of Congress. http://www.loc.gov/aba/cataloging/subject/.
• Library of Congress. 2007c. MARC 21 concise format for bibliographic metadata. Library of Congress (LOC) Network Development and *MARC Standards Office. http://www.loc.gov/marc/bibliographic/ecbdhome.html.
• Library of Congress. 2007d. Metadata object description schema. Library of Congress (LOC) Network Development and MARC Standards Office. http://www.loc.gov/standards/mods/.
• Library of Congress. 2007e. METS (Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard). Library of Congress (LOC) Network Development MARC Standards Office. http://www.loc.gov/standards/mets.
• W3C. 2004a. RDF vocabulary description language 1.0: RDF schema. W3C semantic web activity—RDF Core Working Group. http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-schema/.
• W3C. 2004b. Web Ontology Language (OWL). W3C semantic web activity. Web Ontology Working Group. http://www.w3.org/2004/OWL/.
• W3C. 2006. XML schema 1.1 Part 1: Structure. W3C XML Core Working Group. http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlschema11-1/.