Impact of Metadata in Libraries

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the impact of metadata on libraries, librarians, and librarianship. To this end, the paper first presents a brief overview of the general concept and nature of metadata. This is followed by an examination of the literature on how libraries, librarians, and librarianship generally is and is expected to change as a result of the general impact of metadata.

Simply put, Metadata is information about information, or data about data in that it describes (at the very least) the attributes and the contents of a document, book, or other form of work (Milstead and Feldman, 1). Specifically, metadata allows for the allocation of very precise descriptors to a given information object (e.g., a book, a magazine, etc.) and therefore helps to identify, organize and assist in the location and retrieval of this information object (Dykstra, 42).

Among other things, metadata is critical to preserving the usefulness of data over time. For instance, metadata captures important information on how the data were collected and/or processed so that future users of that data understand these details. What should be understood here is that "metadata," while a new term is really a very familiar organizational component of libraries. For example, library catalogs represent a well established variety of metadata that has served for decades as collection management and resource discovery tools. Thus, the concept is not new. H

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e element in a complex information structure. Further, while print is still important, many students are said to rely exclusively or almost exclusively on electronic materials. When they do go to the library, they expect seamless linking from one information object to another just as they get when using the internet. Metadata, of course, offers library users a better fit for all of their expectations. The foregoing establishes the importance and need of metadata for libraries and it has and will continue to be an important component of functioning libraries. In terms of its impact, it must be realized that it has had a substantial impact, one that is far beyond that of meeting the needs of "electronically sophisticated" users. In this regard, Smith (1) states that metadata has initiated a number of changes in libraries, first and foremost greatly facilitating the development of digital libraries. Moreover, the digital library itself can be greatly streamlined in that the organization of information into physical objects is replaced with a more flexible logical organization. But the most significant change is said to occur in the meta-information environment of the library. Some of these have been discussed by Smith (2) who s

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