Library Theory

Just so nobody gets the idea that I'm not doing any schoolwork out here just because I'm not writing about it, here's an excerpt of a post I had to make for my cataloging class. We were talking about metadata in class on Tuesday, and our assignment involved trying to tell someone else about it and reporting back on the experience. Here's the assignment "Ask a non-librarian friends or family member if they've ever heard of metadata. If they haven't, try to explain it to them and then blog about the experience. What was confusing to them? What was confusing to you? What made sense?" And this is my response:

I chose to talk to my friend Dianna about metadata. Even though she had never heard of the term, she was smart enough to guess at a definition for it based on her understanding of words like "metanarrative" (students in English programs tend to be pretty smart about word derivations). "Is it data about data?" she guessed.

That much was correct, but then we went further into the types of metadata and I got the chance to explain things to her that she couldn't just guess at. Even here, the logical definitions of what descriptive, administrative and structural metadata were used for made sense. (Dianna has worked at a library [but hadn't learned about metadata!], so she could envision the catalog record as we spoke and then connect each piece of information to a concrete image.

We really got into the good stuff when I explained about structural metadata, using the example from class about the digitized CD and a digital book. We both agreed that we're glad the computers understand that metadata so we don't have to.

The only real problem with this conversation is that I kept telling her things out of order and would end up telling her about an aspect of structural metadata, then return to administrative metadata so we could address the idea of meta-metadata. But somehow it all made sense. Maybe I didn't give her enough of the nitty-gritty complicated details, or maybe humanities students are just that intelligent.

The one real comment she had at the end was that she had never before realized that there was actual theory behind what librarians do (and a reason I need a Master's degree!). This was even more clear after I explained the basic concept of entities in FRBR.

It rambles a bit because I'm tired, but then, so did the conversation. If all of this just confuses you, call up Dianna and ask her to explain metadata to you--I'm done with that for tonight!

-Kim

PS--I am typing this post on a brand new keyboard! I ordered an external keyboard a few days ago so I could type more comfortably at my desk, and it arrived this afternoon! The mouse was shipped separately, so it's not here yet, which is making it more difficult to transition to using just the external keyboard. Since I still have to reach up to use the touchpad mouse, it's hard to fight the habit of reaching for the old keyboard after using the mouse. Still, my wrists and back will thank me for making the change.