To metadata or not to metadata

• Published in: EContent Vol. 27; no. 10; pp. 34 - 38
• Main Author: REAMY, Tom
• Format: Magazine Article Trade Publication Article
• Language: English
• Published: Wilton, CT Online 01.10.2004; Information Today, Inc
• Subjects: Bibliographic description. Cataloging. Referencing; Consultants; Content management; Cost control; Costs; Exact sciences and technology; Information and communication sciences; Information and document structure and analysis; Information industry; Information Management; Information processing and retrieval; Information science. Documentation; Infrastructure; Keywords; Metadata; Online information services; Sciences and techniques of general use; Search engines; Taxonomy; Vocabularies & taxonomies; United States > US; Metadata; Software; Implementation
• ISSN: 1525-2531

Whether to add metadata to unstructured content and how much effort is really justified to do so have been raised with increasing frequency and vigour in the last year. These issues and more were explored at the 2003 Dublin Core Metadata Initiative Workshop. While some participants argued for a drastic reduction in metadata efforts or at least rethinking those efforts, other participants offered new ideas of how to create valuable metadata and how to generate value. What has become increasingly clear is that metadata is not going away and there is no one simple solution to how to add metadata and maximize its value. This article looks at some of the basic issues around adding metadata to unstructured content and explores a range of approaches that various groups and software vendors are trying. It examines how a broader view of metadata, beyond simply adding keywords to documents, is leading to a more sophisticated, multi-dimensional or infrastructure based approach to metadata that supports a smarter balance of both more and less metadata. Screen display illustrations are provided in the article, and a list of companies featured. (Quotes from original text)