Metadata and Its Applications in the Digital Library: Approaches and Practices

Citation

Barker, P. (2008), "Metadata and Its Applications in the Digital Library: Approaches and Practices", The Electronic Library, Vol. 26 No. 4, pp. 608-609. https://doi.org/10.1108/02640470810893855

Because of their rich and powerful descriptive power, metadata and metanotation are often used in order to describe the nature and behaviour of the various types of system and object that people encounter or which they create. For example, the following two expressions employ conceptual descriptive metanotation in order to define two examples of book objects that have different types of structure and, possibly, different kinds of content:

1. 1.

   < book>::=[ < chapter>]{1:N}; and

2. 2.

   < photobook>::=[[ < picture>]{1:4}]{1:N}.

As the author of this book states (p. 3), “metadata is data about data” – that is, it is a metalinguistic approach to describing collections of data, information and knowledge. But, of course, it is much more than this. She goes on to state that “from its inception, the key function of metadata was to describe the profiles of the object and to facilitate locating the object” (p. 9). This statement implicitly reflects the importance of these descriptive tools in relation to the various activities that are undertaken in library and information science.

This book has arisen from a study made by the author while she was undertaking research into metadata while studying at the Goettingen State and University Library in Germany during the period 2000 through 2004. Much of the book therefore has an “European” flavour to it. The content of the book is organised into two main sections. The first of these deals with general issues relating to metadata while the second part explores various metadata projects and its applications within the context of digital libraries.

The four chapters that make up the first part of the book deal with metadata basics (Chapter 1) and different metadata types (Chapter 2); the types that are covered include descriptive metadata (such as Dublin Core), structural metadata and administrative metadata. Chapter 3 describes and discusses various types of encoding standard for metadata; some of the approaches that are described include MARC, METS SGML, HTML, XML, XHTML and RDF (Resource Description Framework). The final chapter in this first section of the book looks at metadata implementation; it covers a range of topics such as the use of namespaces, application profiles and schema registries. There is also a useful description of the metadata lifecycle (generation, harvesting, storage, management and use).

The second part of the book contains just two chapters. The first of these describes a selection of (mainly) European metadata projects. Four major examples are described:

1. 1.

   the European BIBLINK project (involving libraries and publishers);

2. 2.

   the MetaLib project (from Germany);

3. 3.

   the MetaWeb project (from Australia); and

4. 4.

   the Nordic Metadata project (based in Scandinavia).

The final chapter of the book explores and documents the importance of metadata in relation to digital library research and development. The chapter starts off with the declaration “metadata is essential to the digital library […] the digital library is all about metadata” (p. 145). Essentially, this chapter describes and discusses representative examples of metadata applications being undertaken in different parts of the world for digital library development. Examples of the systems that are described include: PANDORA and the Australian Digital Thesis Project (Australia), the Oxford Digital Library (in the UK), the DSPACE digital repository for capturing intellectual output at MIT (in the USA) and Peking University's Rare Book Digital Library.

Undoubtedly, this book brings together an interesting and valuable collection of material relating to metadata and its application within library and information systems. It is well structured, logically organised and contains a useful collection of references to ongoing work in this area. I would recommend this book to anyone wanting to find out more about this valuable and challenging area of research and development.