Disembodied information: Metadata, file plans, and the intellectual organisation of records

Abstract

Purpose

Contemporary practices of information management tend to approach information as discrete and decontextualised units. The creation and capture of electronically generated metadata, specific to individual transactions, have become a primary concern of the archival and records management literature. The prevalent model of discrete metadata capture lends itself easily to automation, but it cannot emulate the intellectual control offered by traditional classification structures such as file plans. The purpose of this paper is to provide a critical review of the literature.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper provides a critical review of literature.

Findings

Recognition of contextual structures and relationships cannot at present be automated, natural language processing capabilities are poor, and metadata can easily become decoupled from “disembodied” discrete units of information. Discrete metadata capture has been developed in the context of commercial transactions rather than information management.

Practical implications

File plans as explicit organisations of knowledge can be used to generate contextually significant metadata for records. Such metadata may then be of considerable value to digital curation processes.

Originality/value

This critique will be useful in considering practical approaches to metadata capture.

Citation

Frendo, R. (2007), "Disembodied information: Metadata, file plans, and the intellectual organisation of records", Records Management Journal, Vol. 17 No. 3, pp. 157-168. https://doi.org/10.1108/09565690710833062