A couple more refs on metadata:

The W3C recommendation for metadata syntax and datamodel is RDF, the
Resource Description Framework. There's a lack of really accessible
introductory material to RDF, but you can find some interesting links at
http://www.w3.org/RDF/ and some informal 'design issue' discussion
papers on RDF and the 'Semantic Web' at http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/

The distributed harvesting of metadata model is a nice one; it would be
fun to revisit this using Swish/DC/RDF, as a testbed for combining
RDF-oriented search with fast free text searching...

Dan



On Sat, 11 Mar 2000, Steve Thomas wrote:

> PropheZine Owner wrote:
> > 
> > Hi:
> > 
> > I was wondering if you could take a step backwards and explain Metadata.
> > Not sure what that is.
> 
> Metadata is "data about data" -- that is, in this case, data which describes
> some file of information, e.g. an html file, a pdf file, an excel spreadsheet, ...
> 
> HTML permits the inclusion of metadata using the META tag in the HEAD section.
> This is usually (in this context) ecoded as 
> 
> 	<META NAME="metaname" CONTENT="some text">
> 
> where metaname can be anything you like really. E.g. many people use
> 
> 	<META NAME="author" CONTENT="Steve Thomas">
> 	<META NAME="description" CONTENT="This is an email message describing metadata">
> 	<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="swish; meta data; metadata">
> 
> Now, the important thing to note is that the above is arbitrary. To make this
> useful to a wide range of users and uses, you need agreed standards about what
> metanames will be used, what they mean, and how their content is to be coded.
> One such standard is "Dublin Core" -- which is so named because it was agreed
> at a meeting in Dublin, Ohio, and is meant to provide a CORE set of names --
> not the be-all and end-all, just a core set of elements. Dublin Core is now widespread.
> 
> You can find lots more detail from my Bookmarks page at
> 
> http://www.library.adelaide.edu.au/~sthomas/tech/metadata.html
> 
> 
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Steve
> 
> -- 
>  ___________________________________________________________________________
>  Stephen Thomas, Senior Systems Analyst
>  Mail : Barr Smith Library, The University of Adelaide, South Australia 5005
>  Phone: (08) 8303 5190                                   Fax: (08) 8303 4369
>  Email: stephen.thomas@ adelaide.edu.au
>  URL  : http://www.library.adelaide.edu.au/~sthomas/
>  ** Unless otherwise stated, the content of this message reflects only my **
>  ** own opinion, and not the policy of the University of Adelaide Library.**
> 
>  "I must Create a System, or be enslav'd by another Man's" -- William Blake
> 
>