Metadata is data about data and a very powerful tool in scholarly communications. Good metadata enables discoverability and access. What about the bad metadata? The Scholarly Kitchen brought this interesting information to us in their article, “Much Ado About Metadata 2020!

Metadata 2020 is a community-led initiative, organized by Crossref in collaboration with associations, publishers, universities, and other scholarly communications organizations globally. At its core is the belief that investing in richer metadata should be the scholarly community’s top priority.

Among the issues that the Metadata 2020 advisory group have been addressing are the scope and goals of the project; the opportunities for innovation, including automation; how to successfully engage the community; and how and when will they know if they’ve been successful?

Although the Metadata 2020 initiative is being led by Crossref, it’s not just about journals, or about books and journals, and it’s not just a publisher initiative – it’s a community initiative. The website says “Who is Metadata 2020? You are.”

Melody K. Smith

Sponsored by Data Harmony, a unit of Access Innovations, the world leader in indexing and making content findable.