Getting Started with Digital Collections by Jane D. Monson

Author:Jane D. Monson [Monson, Jane D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: LAN025040 Language Arts & Disciplines / Library & Information Science / Collection Development
Publisher: American Library Association

Metadata Terminology

The world of metadata has an associated vocabulary that may be rather bewildering to those who are unfamiliar with it. The following mini-glossary will therefore facilitate further discussion by demystifying some of these terms.

• Element—a property or attribute of the resource, for example Title, Date, or File Size. Elements serve as “containers” for data and can also be thought of as the equivalent of fields in a database.

• Value—the content (terms or words) that is used to populate an element or field, for example the value Hamlet applied to the element Title. The pairing of a data element with a data value constitutes a basic unit of metadata.

• Record—a collection or grouping of element-value pairs, functioning as a surrogate for a given resource.

• Standard—a set of guidelines or specifications for metadata structure or content. A metadata standard may be a scheme that has been developed and maintained by a standard organization or other group.

• Scheme—a structured collection or set of elements designed for a specific purpose, such as describing a particular type of information source; an implementation of a metadata standard (also known as an element set).

• Application profile—a set of domain-specific rules documenting a metadata scheme for a particular purpose, spelling out the element set and associated content guidelines (also known as a data dictionary or best practice guide).

• Extensible Markup Language (XML)—a markup language that is similar to HTML and can be used to encode metadata for machine processing and exchange.

• Granularity—the level of detail with which a resource or collection is described. The greater the granularity, the deeper the level of detail.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.