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Summary

Part III looks at metadata as a resource to be managed, rather than as a tool for management that we saw in Part II. Chapter 11 refers back to the metadata concepts in Part I and identifies some of the issues that arise when developing and implementing metadata standards, such as quality and security. One way of addressing the quality issue is to have some control over the way in which metadata content is created. Chapter 12 considers the ways in which taxonomies and other controlled vocabularies can be used to improve metadata quality. Cataloguing rules are also important in this context as are authority files. Chapter 13 looks at very large collections of data, especially research data and official data released by public authorities. These require special consideration because of expansion of linked data and the emphasis on re-usability of public data. This raises ethical and political issues about the control and management of information as well as privacy and human rights, the topic for Chapter 14. This last chapter also peers into the future and speculates on which professional groups will be responsible for metadata management and use.

Summary

Overview

This chapter considers the ways in which metadata has an impact on intellectual property rights and information access rights. It goes on to describe the issues arising from authenticity, ownership, and rights management. A discussion of different models of intellectual property (IP) rights considers the Open Digital Rights Language as an example of an information modelling language that deals with intellectual property rights. The indecs system and PREMIS are referred to, because they both deal with rights, although they are discussed in more detail elsewhere. There is also a brief discussion of the way rights are handled by Dublin Core, MPEG-21 and the METS Rights extension to METS. The chapter goes on to consider provenance, starting with a general definition and then describing the PROV metadata standard. It then considers provenance in the context of records management, e-documents, books and printed materials.

Rights management

Protection of intellectual property rights has a major economic impact on many industries. One of the drivers for the development of metadata standards in the publishing and book industry has been the need to manage copyright effectively. They form a key part of the framework for publishing, while protecting the rights of those involved in creating, performing or distributing a creative work. In most countries an author has moral rights to be identified as the creator of a work and consequently to enjoy the benefits that come with these rights. The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in Geneva regulates international treaties to help facilitate international exchange and trade in intellectual property (WIPO, 2015). The interests of different parties involved in intellectual property protection are sometimes in conflict and use of the appropriate metadata helps to identify those interests. Metadata provides a way of mapping the interactions between the stakeholders and provides a mechanism for addressing rights and ownership issues. The ease of copying and faithfulness of reproduction of digital resources both pose an enormous challenge to publishers, record producers and film makers. The growth of peer-to-peer servers for filesharing services continues to be a threat to copyright holders, because of the way they bypass royalty payments.

Summary

Overview

This chapter looks at the structure of metadata standards. Understanding the way in which standards are created and how they are constructed gives us an insight into their use and potential applications to different situations. Metadata standards have arisen in different collections and user communities and some of the main metadata standards are described. This is not intended to be a comprehensive survey but rather an overview of the range of metadata standards on offer with pointers to further information about specialist standards. It starts with a description of Dublin Core, which is probably the most widely used standard, partly because of its simplicity and partly because it was designed for web resources. It illustrates some of the main features of metadata standards and is itself used as the basis for specialist standards and application profiles. The chapter goes on to consider some of the standards that are used in the library and information field for bibliographic materials and social media. It also describes metadata standards used for non-textual materials.

The nature of metadata standards

Metadata standards allow for exchange of data and by doing so ensure the future usability of information resources. By having a documented standard, it is possible for future users of the metadata to understand the conventions in place and the intentions behind the metadata. Declared standards are an important tool for controlling the quality of data about information resources. Agreed conventions for generating content and for analysing resources in order to describe them means that there is greater consistency. This allows for interoperability, so that metadata can be exchanged between applications and institutions. It also helps users by enabling them to confidently search metadata collections, knowing where metadata such as dates, creator names, and title information is held. Metadata can also be repurposed for use in new environments and contexts. The growth of linked data has been an example of extensive re-use of metadata collections. A model of the world and the relationship between resources and other entities are implied by metadata standards, which is why a prior understanding of data modelling (covered in Chapter 3) is essential.

Summary

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.

Why metadata?

If anyone wondered about the importance of metadata, the Snowden revelations about US government data-gathering activities should leave no one in any doubt. Stuart Baker, the NSA (National Security Agency) General Counsel, said ‘Metadata tells you everything about somebody's life. If you have enough metadata you don't really need content’ (Schneier, 2015, 23). The routine gathering of metadata about telephone calls originating outside the USA or calls to foreign countries from the USA caused a great deal of concern, not only among American citizens but also among the US's strongest allies and trading partners. The UK's Investigatory Powers Act (UK Parliament, 2016) requires communications providers to keep metadata records of commun - ications via public networks (including the postal network) to facilitate security surveillance and criminal investigations. As Jacob Appelbaum said when the Wikileaks controversy first blew up, ‘Metadata in aggregate is content’ (Democracy Now, 2013). His point was that when metadata from different sources is aggregated it can be used to reconstruct the information content of communications that have taken place.

Summary

Overview

This final chapter considers metadata in a political context. It considers three aspects of its role in society and speculates on possible future developments. There is the ethical strand, an increasingly important considerations for those involved anywhere in the information communication chain (Robinson, 2009). It also considers where the power lies in both professional and subject domain terms and which professional groups are best equipped to develop and implement metadata standards. This section speculates on the role of metadata in the creation of new knowledge – a holy grail that has so far eluded the most advanced machine learning environments. Finally it considers the practicalities of funding. There is a huge industry dependent on metadata about online transactions, for instance. This forms the basis of digital marketing and the revenue streams for some of the largest incorporated companies, such as Alphabet (Google) and Facebook. This also raises the issue of who pays for the creation of new metadata standards, and who funds the creation of metadata on a massive scale (all those digitisation projects). Throughout, the chapter speculates on the future development and role of metadata.

Ethics

An examination of the role of metadata raises many issues about privacy, security, ownership and control. It also raises issues about the digital divide and its possible role in making information accessible to wider audiences. It has the potential to empower the marginalised, hold government to account and improve individuals’ quality of life. Understanding metadata is important in information literacy and helps individuals to navigate the turbulent sea of opinions, fact-free news and propaganda.

Privacy and ownership

In the context of social media, online usage and communications, metadata has become personal. Much of the data about internet activities and transactions is about personal activity and online behaviour. According to our original definition metadata describes an information object, whether that be raw data or more descriptive information about an individual. This is important because the treatment of metadata has become a political issue. Personal data, especially data that reveals opinions, attitudes and beliefs, is potentially very sensitive.

Summary

Overview

Metadata models help to give an understanding of the development of metadata standards. The chapter starts with an overview of data modelling and its relationship to metadata. It defines some of the terminology used to describe modelling languages, using the Unified Modelling Language (UML) as an example. Systems such as RDF and the ABC Ontology are discussed before considering domain-specific modelling frameworks such as the Library Reference Model (LRM), indecs for the book trade and OAIS for online exchange of information. Van Hooland and Verborgh (2014) talk about four types of modelling: tabular, relational, meta mark-up and RDF. This chapter focuses on the last two types.

Metadata models

A metadata standard is a type of data model which provides a way of conceptualising the characteristics of an information resource. A data model may have its own syntax (grammar) and semantics (meaning) and may be expressible in a mark-up language such as XML (W3C, 2016). One of the interesting aspects of the development of metadata standards has been the convergence of different communities of interest. People have recognised the benefits of working within common frameworks. In order to do so they have adopted common languages for describing the data that they handle. Languages such as XML and RDFa have played an important role in equip - ping these communities with a set of tools to describe data and relationships between data elements (Herman et al., 2015).

Unified Modelling Language (UML)

UML provides a framework for describing data and for data modelling. Hay (2006) talks about ‘semantic data constructs’ when discussing metadata. He introduces the idea of different levels of data, starting with real world things. These might be people or books or items in a store. The next level up is ‘data about real world things’. Typically this would consist of data in databases, including HR systems (people), a library catalogue (books) or a stock control system (items in a store). At the next level up is data about a database or ‘metadata’. This in effect is a data model because it describes the structure of the data. An example from the database domain would be a data dictionary, which is a list of the fields in a database and their characteristics.

Summary

Part I introduces the concepts that underpin metadata, starting with an historical perspective. Some examples of metadata that people come across in their daily life are demonstrated in Chapter 1, along with some alternative views of metadata and how it might be categorised. This chapter defines the scope of this book as considering metadata in the context of document description. Chapter 2 looks at mark-up languages and the development of schemas as a way of representing metadata standards. It also highlights the connection between metadata and cataloguing. Chapter 3 looks at different ways of modelling data with specific reference to the Resource Description Framework (RDF). It describes the Library Reference Model (LRM) and its impact on current cataloguing systems. Chapter 4 discusses cataloguing and metadata standards and ways of representing metadata. It introduces RDA, MARC, BIBFRAME as well as standards used in records management, digital repositories and non-textual materials such as images, video and sound.

Summary

Overview

Management of information was the third of the purposes of metadata identified in the six-point model of metadata use. This chapter describes the information lifecycle and a simplified model of this provides the framework for describing the management of information resources and the role of metadata. The chapter considers the role of metadata in each of the main stages of the information lifecycle. This is illustrated with examples from libraries, archives, records management and research data repositories.

Information lifecycles

One of the purposes of metadata is to manage the capture, storage, distribution and use of information resources. This can be done in a variety of contexts: libraries, records collections, archives, research data repositories and multimedia collections. As well as formal collections, metadata also plays an important role in the organisation of personal collections, such as bibliographic references, social media and personal files.

The concept of an information lifecycle is widely used in the management of digital resources and particularly for preservation. There are identifiable stages in the life of a digital resource and this provides a basis for managing those resources. Detlor (2010) puts forward a process-based view of information management where the number of steps in the information lifecycle depends on the perspective taken (organisational, library, or personal). This is an idea that is also summarised in Floridi's (2010) overview of Information. Although metadata does not refer exclusively to digital information (it is also used for books and other physical manifestations of information) the majority of examples discussed here are electronic. These include websites, electronic document and records management systems, data repositories and social media. The lifecycle concept is well developed in records management and this is reflected in ISO15489-1:2016, the international standard for records management, which emphasises events in the lifecycle of records:

Six broad classes of metadata may be used in the management of records. They may be applied to all entities (see above), or fewer, depending on the complexity of the implementation. The six classes are the following:

Summary

Overview

Metadata standards such as Dublin Core and MODS were designed to improve the retrieval of web resources and discoverability of digital information resources. This chapter considers the role of metadata in information retrieval. It begins with a review of information retrieval concepts and measures of retrieval performance before considering the impact of metadata on retrieval. Reference is made to models for resource description and subject indexing. The final part of the chapter examines the relationship between subject indexing and computational methods of retrieval.

The role of metadata in information retrieval

Van Rijsbergen (1979, 1–2) makes the distinction between information retrieval and data retrieval. Information retrieval looks at the existence or nonexistence of a document or information resource that matches the search criteria. This lends itself to document (information resource) descriptions, also known as metadata. Data retrieval on the other hand is about obtaining factual answers to a question, although the boundaries are being blurred with the development of fact-based retrieval systems such as Google's Knowledge Graph. This can also be described in terms of metadata, although here the emphasis is on data dictionaries that define the structure of the database rather than describing document content. The focus of this chapter is on information retrieval rather than data retrieval. This ties in with the overall scope of this book on describing document content. However it does deal with documents of all types from mainly text-based through to multimedia materials. Metadata improves the discoverability of information resources by describing the content in a variety of ways. Cochrane (1982) talks about subject access as being systematic, topical or natural (free-text). The systematic approach is via a classification or taxonomy which provides a formal language for describing the content of the resource. The topical approach may be subject headings which may be derived from a controlled language or may be free text. The natural approach uses free text or natural language – i.e. text retrieval from the content of the information resource itself. Considerable effort has gone into text retrieval algorithms, primarily to rank the results in a way that is meaningful and relevant to the searcher.

Summary

Overview

This chapter considers the ways in which metadata has an impact on information governance. The first part of the chapter considers the role of metadata in privacy, freedom of information and legal admissibility of documents. It then goes on to explore the use of metadata to facilitate regulatory compliance. This demonstrates approaches to document and information management and to metadata policies which contribute to the overall ability of organisations to comply with regulatory requirements.

Governance and risk

Information governance is a major preoccupation for many organisations. Not only is there legislative pressure from freedom of information and privacy legislation around the world, but there is also a concern about managing risk. Data loss, malicious access, poor data quality and lack of interoperability can all have a profound effect on the viability of a business or integrity of a public service. Reports in the press of data breaches have led to loss of reputation which can have a real effect on sales. Security breaches can also lead to direct financial loss as well as lost opportunities and exposure to further threats.

As well as the generic risks, many corporations operate in regulated sectors or markets and have to be able to demonstrate compliance. There are increasing global pressures for multinational enterprises to comply with national legislation in the markets in which they operate. National governments and international bodies are co-operating to ensure that regulations are applied across the board and that potential loopholes are closed off.

Responses to these pressures by professional bodies such as computing, information management, document and records management and library and information services have resulted in new approaches and practices. These professional bodies also play an important role in setting standards and providing training for professionals responsible for compliance. This chapter identifies these areas and looks at ways in which metadata has been used as a part of information governance. It could be argued that metadata is an information resource that itself is subject to governance and this is discussed in Chapter 11.

Summary

Overview

This chapter considers the ways in which metadata is used for e-commerce and egovernment. It describes use of metadata for marketing and online behavioural advertising. E-commerce is illustrated with an example from the book trade, ONIX, and with a description of music industry metadata and digital images. It finally looks at egovernment, focusing on the documentary aspects of transactions and the role that metadata plays in facilitating these transactions.

Electronic transactions

E-commerce and e-government are two sides of the same coin. They are about human interaction with organisations via the internet that result in transactions of one kind or another. In the case of e-commerce that interaction is with commercial organisations. In e-government the interaction is with public bodies. E-government has a slightly wider definition, in that public education and information can also be considered a part of e-government even if it is not a part of a specific transaction.

The main difference between the two is that transactions with individuals may involve metadata behind the scenes, but do not require overt handling of metadata by the consumer. For instance if an individual is recording a life event via the internet (such as registering a death), the ‘Tell Us Once’ service in the UK effectively allows surviving relatives to complete one death registration form and the data on that form is used to inform the local authority, the tax authorities, benefits agencies, vehicle licensing, passport office and national savings accounts.

Many e-commerce and e-government systems depend on tagging (metadata) to make their sites discoverable by target groups and the use of metadata in this way is explored in Chapter 6 on retrieving information. Ecommerce and e-government systems also deal with personal data and data about website interactions using technologies such as cookies to track usage of a site. This raises privacy issues which are discussed in Chapter 14. This chapter includes a discussion about metadata for cookies in the context of online behavioural advertising, a major focus for e-commerce activity.

Summary

Overview

This chapter considers the issues surrounding the management of metadata and describes some of the techniques that are used for metadata management. The project lifecycle concept is used as the framework for discussion of metadata management. The management of metadata starts with analysing metadata requirements and moves on to the development and selection of metadata schemas. There is then a discussion about encoding metadata and the use of controlled vocabulary before turning to content rules. Interoperability of metadata schemas focuses on crosswalks and metadata registries. Quality management covers the use of administrative metadata and reviews issues such as security of information. The final part of the chapter looks at user education and the presentation and use of search aids to make metadata more accessible. The chapter concludes with a view on convergence of management practice for metadata across the domains.

Metadata is an information resource

Managing metadata, like other aspects of information management, has to be appropriate to the requirements of its users and fit for purpose. If the metadata is too detailed, it is costly to maintain. If it is not detailed enough, the functionality is severely limited. Metadata must be applied in a consistent way and should be retrievable by those who need access to it. The management of metadata can be seen as a series of stages, although in most instances a user will only be concerned with one or two stages in the cycle.

Metadata is an information resource and as such can be described in terms of a lifecycle with specific activities and processes at each stage:

Summary

Overview

This chapter describes some of the concepts associated with metadata. It considers ways in which metadata can be expressed and focuses on document mark-up languages. It then considers schemas as one method of defining metadata standards and data elements. Databases of metadata are described as an alternative to embedded metadata. The last section of the chapter shows some examples of how metadata is used in different contexts such as document creation, records management, library catalogues, digital repositories and image collections.

Defining metadata

Metadata is used in catalogues of digital and physical information resources. The requirements for books in a library catalogue might be very different from the metadata embedded in a web page, but the general concepts of metadata apply to both. Its use for digital and printed resources provides some helpful examples. Document mark-up languages such as SGML and XML are widely used to express metadata standards.

Document mark-up

The development of mark-up languages is an excellent example of the way in which metadata can be applied to and expressed in documents. Electronic documents are one of the most common forms of digital object to which metadata is applied, and range from web pages through to electronic records, and may incorporate text, images and interactive material.

Mark-up languages were initially developed to describe the layout and presentation of documents. They enabled organisations to manage large numbers of documents that needed to be presented in different formats. Mark-up languages also provide a means of defining metadata standards.

Mark-up languages, which arose from text processing, are defined as: ‘computer systems that can automate parts of the document creation and publishing process’ (Goldfarb and Prescod, 2001). Mark-up languages containing a combination of text and formatting instructions include:

Summary

THIS IS NOT A ‘HOW TO DO IT’ BOOK. There are several excellent guides about the practical steps for creating and managing metadata. This book is intended as a tutorial on metadata and arose from my own need to find out more about how metadata worked and its uses. The original book came out at a time when there were very few guides of this type available. Metadata Fundamentals for All Librarians provided a good starting point which introduced the basic concepts and identified some of the main standards that were then available (Caplan, 2003). It was an early publication from a period of tremendous development and in an area that was changing day to day. Introduction to Metadata, published by the Getty Institute, represented another milestone and provided more comprehensive background to metadata (Baca, 1998). It is now in its third edition (Baca, 2016).

In my work as an information management consultant many colleagues and clients kept asking the questions: ‘What is metadata?’, ‘How does it work?’, and ‘What's it for?’. The last of these questions particularly resonated with the analysis and review of information services. This led to the development of a view of metadata defined by its purposes or uses. Since the first edition of Metadata for Information Management and Retrieval there have been many excellent additions to the literature, notably Zeng and Qin's book, simply entitled Metadata, which is now in its second edition (Zeng and Qin, 2008; 2015; Haynes, 2004). I also enjoyed Philip Hider's book, Information Resource Description, which is substantially about metadata from a subject retrieval perspective (Hider, 2012). There are many other excellent tomes, some of which are mentioned in the main body of this book. I hope that this second edition adds a unique perspective to this burgeoning field.

This book covers the basic concepts of metadata and some of the models that are used for describing and handling it. The main purpose of this book is to reveal how metadata operates, from the perspective of the user and the manager. It is primarily concerned with data about document-based information content – in the broadest sense. Many of the examples will be for bibliographic materials such as books, e-journals and journal articles.

Summary

Overview

The chapter begins with a discussion of resource identifiers. It then considers how resource description is used to distinguish between different information resources. Some widely used identifiers such as ISBNs, DOIs, ISSNs, ISTCs and ISANs are described. ‘Description’ underpins other purposes such as retrieval and rights management. The chapter then looks at other metadata used for describing information resources by considering in turn: title; creator; bibliographic citation; date; format; and description.

How do you identify a resource?

Hider talks about metadata in terms of describing information resources, the primary purpose of which is to facilitate information access and use. He goes on to discuss data elements:

Each element describes an aspect or attribute of the information resource […] Clearly some attributes are more relevant in the provision of information access than are others.

(Hider, 2012, 15)

He makes the point that metadata used to describe a resource is a representation of that resource. Taking this argument further, an identifier can be seen as an extreme form of representation of a resource – reducing it to a single sequence of digits or characters in a code. In effect an identifier could act as a surrogate for the resource, although they are more usually handled as labels for the resource.

Identifiers

A fundamental requirement of any description system is to have a way of uniquely identifying an item, so that it is clear what is being described. This is a particular concern in online records management, where there are different levels of aggregation. Is the resource being described as a single document, a series of documents on a particular topic, or a collection of items? For a small collection, an identifier could simply be the title of a book or piece of music. However, with even quite modest collections ambiguity becomes a significant issue, as when two different books share the same title, or where the same work may have different versions of the title (as with translated works). Identifiers such as ISBNs can be used to distinguish between them, although because ISBNs are assigned to manifestations rather than works, they are not a reliable way of disambiguating two titles. Additional metadata such as Author would be needed to distinguish between two works.

Summary

Overview

This chapter is all about the content of metadata elements. Permissive standards such as Dublin Core describe what each field or data element is for, but do not specify how the content of that data element is generated. For instance, the ‘dc:creator’ data element might contain the name of an organisation as it is known to the website manager, it might be taken from an authority file, or it may be created according to a set of cataloguing rules such as AACR2. This chapter is about the techniques or mechanisms that are used to manage and control the content of individual data elements. This is important for consistency, quality of retrieval and efficiency of operation. Controlled vocabularies, authorities and cataloguing rules all come under the heading of encoding schemes. A more detailed treatment of cataloguing can be found in Welsh and Batley (2012). The development and use of controlled vocabularies are covered in classic works such as Aitchison, Gilchrist and Bawden (2000) and more recently in Broughton (2006). Lambe (2007) and Broughton (2015) deal with aspects of classification and taxonomies – also important sources of terms for metadata elements.

Role of taxonomies in metadata

Hedden (2016) recognises the convergence of metadata and taxonomies and the richness of software applications to handle taxonomies and ontologies. It is key to managing the content of metadata elements. Lambe (2007) sees metadata as one way of instantiating a taxonomy, the other being a thesaurus. Increasingly taxonomies and controlled vocabularies are being incorporated into document and information management products and services such as Sharepoint 2013. White (2016) makes a strong case for the use of taxonomies and controlled vocabularies in an enterprise search environment. Bloggers such as Earley (2017) and the Metadata Research Center (Drexel University, 2017) have also contributed to discussion about metadata and taxonomies.

Encoding and maintenance of controlled vocabularies

One of the strengths of metadata schemas such as Dublin Core is that it provides a means of comparing the content of data elements for different resources. Each element has a defined meaning, so that there is a semantic relationship. This means, for instance, that the Creator data element will contain information about the person, group or organisation responsible for creating the resource. This provides a mechanism for implementing the semantic web, where like can be compared with like.

Summary

One of the organising principles of the first edition of this book was that metadata could be categorised by purpose. The original five purposes reflected the preoccupations of information professionals in the early 2000s. Many of these purposes have stood up to scrutiny and Part II builds on that model, but with six purposes. This part of the book starts with resource identification and description (Chapter 5) as before. Chapter 6 looks at information retrieval and the impact that metadata has on it. It necessarily discusses retrieval theory moving beyond the measures of precision and recall that were discussed in the first edition. This part then moves on to ‘Managing information resources’ (Chapter 7) and looks at the role of metadata in managing the information lifecycle. Chapter 8 considers intellectual property rights, including provenance. Previously there was a chapter on e-commerce and this has been developed into a description of the role of metadata supporting e-commerce and e-government (Chapter 9). It is illustrated with examples from the book trade (ONIX), e-learning environments and research data (including ‘big data’). The final chapter in Part II is about information governance (Chapter 10), dealing with ethical and regulatory issues. Risk is used as a lens through which to view regulation and governance.

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