The What and Why of Metadata

February 14, 2012 / Melody Smith / Comments Off on The What and Why of Metadata

The word metadata is thrown around everywhere these days. But does everyone really know what metadata is and how it is used?

We found this interesting topic on The Register Citizen in their article, “The trails of breadcrumbs we leave … or, what is metadata?” It is simple. Metadata is data about data. And it is everywhere, in virtually every piece of digital data and equipment we own.

What does this metadata tell us? For some it can be used as evidence, and for others it is just an amusement. But it has become a part of the business and technical vernacular. Many organizations now refer to knowledge management and the capture of metadata and taxonomy structures as “knowledge organization systems”. This shift in language is important. While many organizations are struggling with building out their taxonomies, they are learning what this shift is, and why it is important.

Melody K. Smith

Sponsored by Access Innovations, the world leader in thesaurus, ontology, and taxonomy creation and metadata application.

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Melody Smith

Melody K. Smith has provided organizational, social media and digital communication services to a large non-profit for the past twenty years. Prior to that she championed employee engagement and communications in the healthcare field. She holds a Bachelors degree in Marketing. When not wrangling and writing TaxoDiary content for your reading pleasure, Melody writes fiction, rescues dogs and throws legendary dinner parties.