Microentry

Microentry is a term used to describe a compact, machine-readable data unit that represents a single item, concept, or resource within a larger information system. It emphasizes brevity and interoperability, containing only the essential identifiers and metadata needed to identify the item and establish basic relationships to other entries. Microentries are intended for fast indexing, retrieval, and linking in catalogs, knowledge bases, search interfaces, and data ecosystems.

A typical microentry includes an identifier (such as a URI or DOI), a title or label, minimal creator or author information, a date or date range, a resource type, and a small set of metadata terms describing its subject, language, or relevance. The entry is often encoded in lightweight, machine-readable formats such as JSON-LD, RDF, XML, or microformats, enabling easy integration with search engines and linked-data platforms.

Use cases span digital libraries, product catalogs, news aggregators, and knowledge graphs, where microentries serve as building blocks for larger structures. They support fast filtering, semantic search, and explicit linking to related microentries or full records. They are commonly produced by automated extractors, data crawlers, content-management systems, or authoring tools.

Advantages of microentries include scalability, low overhead, and easier maintenance of large indexes, while limitations include reduced context and potential ambiguity without accompanying full records. The concept is not universally standardized; implementations vary by domain and platform, often aligning with broader trends in microdata, linked data, and schema-based metadata. Related concepts include microdata, schema.org, and JSON-LD, which influence how microentries are encoded and linked.