Metadata & databases

 

After reading chapters four and five in our digital humanities textbook, I learned that metadata is basically just specified data. It tells you specific information on different digital characters such as the format and size of the file you are looking at/ working with. It's interesting on the broad range that it covers from being simply stated to a deeper dive of a description of the file. It reminds me of how broad digital humanities are. Speaking of, metadata fits into the digital humanities because digital humanities are made up of digital data, and the text book makes a good point about metadata and data. It said, "Without metadata, information in files would be like books without covers or title pages on shelves without labels." (Drucker 53). This really is the part that made clear and started to break down what metadata actually is to me. 

Metadata is important to my website analysis project because my website basically is a storage site for digital works/projects. Because of metadata, there is a catalog system that allows the different topics and formats of these works into categories that you can search for/through on the site to find the specific things you are looking for. 

Comments

  1. CamSeptember 18, 2022 at 3:54 PM

    Hi! I loved the quote you selected from the textbook about metadata being like a book's cover! It makes the entire concept of metadata feel easier to grasp for someone who doesn't fully see the importance of it. I enjoyed reading about how it applies to your project, and I look forward to hearing more about it this week!

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