metadata
Sign in to savethumb|In the 21st century, metadata typically refers to digital forms, but traditional card catalogs contain metadata, with cards holding information about books in a library (author, title, subject, etc.).
AI overview
Metadata is information *about* information—like a library catalog card that describes a book's author, title, and subject rather than the book's actual content. In today's digital world, metadata helps us organize, find, and understand the things we store and share, from documents to photos to online files.
AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.
Article
47 sectionsContents
- Types
- History
- Definition
- Structures
- Syntax
- Hierarchical, linear, and planar schemata
- Granularity
- Hypermapping
- Standards
- Use
- File metadata
- Photographs
- Video
- Telecommunications
- Geospatial metadata
- Creation
- Data virtualization
- Statistics and census services
- Library and information science
- Science
- Museums
- Usage
- Standards
- Cultural objects
- Online content
- Law
- United States
- European Union
- Australia
- Legislation
- Healthcare
- Biomedical researches
- Data warehousing
- Internet
- Broadcast industry
- Ecology and environment
- Digital music
- Cloud applications
- Administration and management
- Storage
- Database management
- Popular culture
- Contrast with documentation
- See also
- References
- Further reading
- External links
thumb|In the 21st century, metadata typically refers to digital forms, but traditional card catalogs contain metadata, with cards holding information about books in a library (author, title, subject, etc.).
Metadata (or metainformation) is data (or information) that defines and describes the characteristics of other data. It often helps to describe, explain, locate, or otherwise make data easier to retrieve, use, or manage. For example, the title, author, and publication date of a book are metadata about the book. But, while a data asset is finite, its metadata is infinite.