Metadata is commonly defined as "data about data." This seemed like an esoteric term to me until I read two articles that helped clear things up a bit.
Metadata is used in library settings as surrogate records, of sorts, so people can pull up the item in the catalog and view information about it without looking at the actual item. Very helpful!
Electronic articles have metadata created for them so they can be searched for and downloaded using Ebsco or a similar database. Also very helpful!
Internet information has Google to rank the information for us, using algorithms, not metadata. The algorithms search the entire piece of information, not just metadata tags, according to Dawson and Hamilton. They remind the reader that Lynch (2001) states that it is really easy to "manipulate the behavior of retrieval systems that use it, rather than simply describing the documents or other digital objects it may be associated with." Trolls are everywhere! I always wondered who these people are who have the time to be internet devients. Do they not have jobs or more hoistic motivations? I wonder if their houses are clean or littered with fast food garbage? I digress...
So if it's so easy to manipulate metadata online, what else can be done to ensure accuracy of search results? Dawson and Hamilton suggest "data shoogling." Basically, shoogle comes from the Scottish for moving or shaking around, and this can be done in a few different ways "search engine optimization, metadata cleansing, metadata optimization, and metadata exporting" (2005). In the creation process, putting meaningful title information in the title line, or right below the title line, is an example of making a page easier to find for the web robots that search for Google. This is one practical article, offering loads of advice for ways to get Google to find your electronic information. Why is this so important? Possibly because Google, along with McDonalds and Disney, are taking over the world! Less dramatically, because of Google's popularity and ease of use, it just makes good sense for findability. However, Dawson and Hamilton remind the reader to use "basic data management principals...so alternative output formats" can be used in the future because "Google may not be dominant forever." At least they recognize that Google isn't the only option, which is healthy, I think. Otherwise, we get into a situation much like the company that gives people little choice for word processing, etc. and who wants that?
Something many people do want is to be able to find accurate information easily. So I've shown examples of metadata in libraries, publishing and on the web, but according to Greenberg, metadata [has] been adopted by the computer science, statistical, database, and library and information science communities" since Myers first coined the term in 1969 (2005). Since it is used by many different disciplines, Dublin Core
is "making it easier to find information," according to their website. More specifically, they are"in the development of interoperable online metadata standards that support a broad range of purposes and business models", which is really awesome, if you ask me. According to Greenberg, "Dublin Core is at the "simple end of the [metadata] spectrum," making it more user-friendly and widely used. Like Google, which is also "a powerful and pervasive common information enviornment" (Dawson and Hamilton, 2005).
Without getting into the technical jargon of metadata, just knowing that it exists for a purpose, and imagining the great things Dublin Core can do by linking all disciplines together, feels like I've been allowed into a secret programmers club or something. Greenberg reminds us that learning about it will "help us understand the role of metadata schemes in the larger context of information organization," and that is important for any person in the LIS field to understand.
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