ResourceBlog Article: Metadata and the Future of E-Books

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Thursday, 5th August 2010

Metadata and the Future of E-Books

You might think that an article about metadata might have some material, maybe even a comment or two from librarians who have been creating GOOD metadata for a LONG time. OCLC, LC, and so many other places (perhaps a nearby university library) I'm sure would be happy to talk and/or direct the writer to important people to talk to.

But, as is usually the case, it doesn't happen.

However, the word librarian does appear.

From the Article:

Publishing metadata, for instance — things like ISBNs, trim size, etc. — has traditionally been one of the dullest aspects of the business, useful for selling to retailers and libraries but not much else. Now, however, publishers are expanding their definition and uses of metadata, in order to make their titles easier to find in text searches. Readers don’t care about metadata — until they can or can’t find the book they’re looking for.

Of course, with more data being available in a record (table of contents, author bio, related titles, even the full text of the book) you're also creating more potential access points. The challenge is maximizing to the most relevant results without enough results (in no particular order) that does not allow for retrieval and upsets the searcher.

I'm sure organizations like ALCTS would be happy to talk about cataloging (aka metadata) created and maintained (just as important) by humans, professionals.

Nevertheless, the article is a good read. Here's one more paragraph:

“Making a title discoverable in a world where hundreds of thousands of books are published each year is more critical than when only tens of thousands were being published,” Don [Linn] says. “Basically, if you do a poor job with your metadata, you’re hosed.” Metadata is good information management, but in a search-driven business, it’s good marketing too.

Source: Wired

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