Overview

This chapter sets out to introduce the concepts behind metadata and illustrate them with historical examples of metadata use. Some of these uses predate the term ‘metadata’. The development of metadata is placed in the context of the history of cataloguing, as well as parallel developments in other disciplines. Indeed, one of the ideas behind this book is that metadata and cataloguing are strongly related and that there is considerable overlap between the two. Pomerantz (2015) and Gartner (2016) have made a similar connection, although Zeng and Qin (2015) emphasise the distinction between cataloguing and metadata. This leads to discussion of the definitions of ‘metadata’ and a suggested form of words that is appropriate for this book. Examples of metadata use in e-publishing, libraries, archives and research data collections are used to illustrate the concept. The chapter then considers why metadata is important in the wider digital environment and some of the political issues that arise. This approach provides a way of assessing the models of metadata in terms of its use and its management. The chapter finally introduces the idea that metadata can be viewed in terms of the purposes to which it is put.