As we get into the meatier part of information technology, I feel like posting more muddiest points for the class, this is party because I am more of a visual and hands-on learner, a diagram of meta-data would be helpful (hint).
The Database article was not a difficult article to comprehend. As individuals and students we encounter some sort of database everyday. In the past, I used Excel to organize the conference registration record of 1000 participants. The three types of databases include the hierarchical, network, and relational models. I am most familiar with the relational model. The organization I worked for created a student tracking database related to this model of columns and rows. The database contained over 10,000 student records, linked to the external web-site, and produced reports. An interesting difference between databases and metadata is that databases rely on software to organize the storage of data.
Meta-data is more than data about data. It is the set of industry standards used to describe the “information object.” Not surprising, library professionals used meta-data first to create intellectual and physical access to objects. It has increased accessibility and preserved the integrity of the information objects.
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I agree with you on the wish for diagrams of the very detailed "things" we've been reading about. I found myself trying to sketch what I imagined database models, etc. to look like.
I find your point about metadata being real very intriguing, especially when a person goes about finding it in a library. i always thought about the process of looking for metadata, say on the library database to search for the real data. it's a strange continuity. I also think it interesting about your point of accessibility and preservation, look at the electronic data of older materials before handling. I just never thought about that before. thanks!
I too tend to immediately think of Excel as the platonic form of a database. I can picture a heriarchical model thanks to the description of it looking like a family tree, but I'm not completely sure how that translates into usage. Would searching it really be different than searching a relational database? (Yes, let's hope for pictures and charts in class).
Good point that metadata increases accessibility. It creates more search terms for the object, and allows users to locate objects with a wider "net" of criteria.
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