Metadata
At the LITA National Forum this weekend, Clifford Lynch used a definition of metadata that made some sense to me. He said metadata was a statement by someone about a resource. The inclusion of the agent creating the metadata in the definition, is important since it is that knowledge that becomes a point of evaluation for the quality of the metadata.
In libraries, we can trust catalogers at other institutions to make a good faith effort to create quality MARC records. Mistakes may be made. Records may not be as user-friendly as we would like (see Sandy Berman). However, we do assume the person did not deliberately misrepresent the item for some ulterior motive.
This is not true when we move outside closed communities. Metadata affixed to a Web page may be there to spam search engines may have intentions that are even more malicious. Trust is based on knowing who created the metadata and knowing the reputation of that creator. Only then is the metadata of any use or value.
Mr. Lynch was an excellent speaker. This was just an aside in his much more enlightening talk (and he didn't used PowerPoint, Yea!!). I want to thank him for such a thought provoking presentation and the LITA National Forum for inviting him.
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