metadata

Metadata is data that describes other data, providing information that helps identify, understand, locate, manage, and preserve a resource. It can describe the content, context, quality, condition, provenance, and rights associated with data, and may be generated automatically by devices or added by human curators, researchers, or data managers.

Metadata is commonly categorized into descriptive, structural, and administrative types. Descriptive metadata supports discovery and identification with elements such as title, author, subject, and date. Structural metadata describes how the components of a resource are organized, such as the chapters in a document or the tracks in a dataset. Administrative metadata records information needed to manage a resource over time, including creation date, file format, access rights, licenses, preservation actions, and provenance. Domain-specific standards provide tailored schemas, such as Dublin Core for general resources, MARC for library cataloging, EXIF and IPTC for images, PREMIS for preservation provenance, ISO 19115 for geographic data, and Schema.org for web pages.

Uses and benefits of metadata include improving search and discovery, enabling interoperability among systems, supporting data governance and stewardship, and guiding preservation planning. Metadata quality, completeness, and accuracy directly affect a resource’s usability and trustworthiness and are maintained through ongoing governance, validation, enrichment, and documentation. Metadata management often involves metadata repositories, catalogs, and controlled vocabularies, with attention to interoperability through standard schemas and mappings.

Privacy considerations are important, as metadata can reveal sensitive information about people, locations, or relationships even when the primary data are non-sensitive. Careful design of capture, retention, and access controls helps mitigate risk.