Metadata

Metadata is a general term used to describe the structured data that can be created to descibe a digital or non-digital object. For example, a cataloguing record in McGill's library catalogue that describes a book in the collection is MARC21 metadata.

With the explosion of the Internet and the ability to easily create digital objects, there is a large body of knowledge and standards that now exist to describe objects that are born digital.

For more information about the best metadata standard to use in your research or administrative project, or for more information about metadata projects in the Libraries, contact: chris [dot] oliver [at] mcgill [dot] ca (Chris Oliver) Head, Cataloguing Services, tel.: 514-398-4777.

This page includes links to a number of useful websites for general information about metadata coding schemes.

Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography ... 6.1 Cataloging, Identifiers, Linking, and Metadata

MARC21 ... a cataloguing standard

Dublin Core ... a simple descriptive standard for Web and electronic resources

MODS ... a simplified MARC record in XML

OAI-PMH ... an XML transmission protocol for harvesting open digital repositories

LOM ... a metadata standard tfor learning objects

CanCore ... a Canadian metadata profile for learning object metadata

Metadata Resources Guide (2004) ... a bibliography produced by Information Management Branch, Information Management, Access and Privacy, Alberta Government Services