Image Source: Data Management U
It may seem like a confusing word, but let's split it into:
Meta: concerning or providing information about members of its own category
Data: factual information, measures, or statistics used as a basis for reasoning or discussion.
combining into Metadata: data about data or information about information, something that describes something else in a structured way. (Hoffman, p. 41)
We experience metadata when shopping online and in person, choosing a course from a catalog, and when selecting books, periodicals, media, or databases from the library. Per Irma Šlekytė from NordVPN, the descriptions of these items, such as author, instructor, data, and name, are metadata that provide context that makes finding, managing, using, and understanding the data it describes easier. (Source)
Image source: https://nordvpn.com/blog/what-is-metadata/
The following are different types of Metadata
The data type: Book, song, movie, website, database, Smartphone, Youtube video
How the data was created: written and published, upload, performed, type of camera used
When the data was created: date of publication, date of recording, creation date of a website, date a video was uploaded
Where the data was created: On a phone, publisher location, distributor location, URL, database location
Creator of the data: Singer of a song, writer of a song, author of a novel, director of a movie, TV network, the phone the picture was taken with (Source)
Below is an example of metadata for a computer file. When you right-click a .doc file and select "Get Info," you'll be provided with all the descriptive metadata associated with that file. (Grace Eliza Goodwin/Insider) What Is Metadata? the Data That Describes Data, Explained (businessinsider.com)
An example of Data and Metadta
The work by Gretchen L. Hoffman is data that has two sets of metadata physically on it; the author and title.
The right side of the image displays metadata that proivides detailed description on the work in a structured displayed for you to make a selections.The different types of metadata is highlighted and arrows point to it:
1. Hoffman, G. L. (2019). Organizing Library Collections: Theory and Practice p. 41
2. Marco, D.P. (2021). Challenges of Metadata Silos - EWSolutions. https://www.ewsolutions.com/challenges-of-metadata-silos/
3. Rowman & Littlefield. (2020). Organizing Library Collections: Theory and Practice. (n.d.). https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781538108505/Organizing-Library-Collections-Theory-and-Practice
4. Šlekytė, I. (2023, August 21). Metadata: What it is and how it works. NordVPN. https://nordvpn.com/blog/what-is-metadata/
5. Witman, E. (2021, June 17). What is metadata? Understanding the type of data that describes data sets and determines much of what you see online. Business Insider: Reviews: Tech. https://www.businessinsider.com/guides/tech/what-is-metadata
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