Metadata Models – International Developments and Implementation

Abstract

Definitions of metadata often describe them as “data about other data”, sometimes refined through the expression “structured data about data”. This definition over-simplifies the facts, that metadata on one hand have been in use long before the digital age, be it in library catalogues or on inventory cards of museums, and that on the other hand the entity they represent does not necessarily need to be in form of bits and bytes. A highly generic definition for metadata therefore could be “(structured) information about (digital) objects”. Transferred to the digital world “structured information” stands for “structured data”.