The subject of the readings this week is the complex topic of metadata. Any collection, whether it be drawings at an art museum, books in a traditional library, or images in a digital library, requires the creation of information about the individual items held in it. This metadata facilitates the organization of a collection for the purpose of searching for and finding individual items in the collection. With the explosion of digital content on the Internet, the importance of metadata, data about data, is spreading to new sectors of society as the need to sort through the overwhelming jumble of resources provided by the Internet becomes a practical concern for millions of people.
The issues involving metadata that libraries have to deal with are expanding as technology advances. Beyond the creation of catalogs for print materials, libraries and related organizations need to develop systems that allow people to locate and access materials in digital formats. Technological and representational standards are important considerations for digital collections. Creating a standard metadata form for digital objects, akin a MARC record for bibliographic records, is still in the process of development.
There are no muddy points this week.
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