What is Metadata

Metadata is often defined simply as “data about data.” Metadata is structured information that librarians, archivists, and other information specialists document about a resource such as a book, photograph, microfilm reel, archival manuscript, etc. This information can describe many aspects of the resource, including its content, its physical form, who created it and when, where it is located, special equipment needed to access it, who owns the rights to it, and how it might be preserved for future use.

Metadata can be divided into three major types: descriptive, structural, and administrative.

• Descriptive metadata simply describes the resource for purposes of identification and retrieval. Descriptive metadata allow users of your content to search and retrieve images most appropriate to their information needs (e.g., title, creator, date, subject, etc.).
• Administrative metadata provides information that ensures the continued management of the resource. Administrative metadata may tell us who owns the rights to the image, or what hardware/software was used to produce the image, or the file type of the digital image.
• Structural metadata describes how the resource is organized. For instance, structural metadata can identify the structural divisions of a book, such as chapters or index.

For the purposes of your partnership in Historic Pittsburgh, you will primarily be responsible for descriptive metadata about your digital objects. You will also have some administrative metadata to record about your project.

Well-formed, well-researched, consistent metadata that follows established standards is crucial to the usability of your digital images. Good metadata can do so much:

• Brings a high level of authenticity to your project.
• Provides many layers of access to your images that can be understood and utilized by diverse audiences of students, teaching faculty, researchers, and the general Internet community.
• Provides a context (cultural, social, economic, political, historical, etc.) to your images.
• Brings similar resources together or can help a user weed out resources that do not meet his/her information needs.
• Promotes interoperability, meaning that information about your images can be shared and exchanged by different machines with different hardware and software platforms. This can bring awareness and accessibility of your collection to a global community of scholars, students, and researchers.
• Helps to ensure that your images will be maintained and will continue to be accessible into the future.
• Provides a level of accessibility to rare and unique resources not previously available to students, researchers, and teaching faculty.