Metadata, Jeffrey Pomerantz
Metadata, Jeffrey Pomerantz
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Metadata

Author: Jeffrey Pomerantz

Narrator: Steven Menasche

Unabridged: 5 hr 8 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Ascent Audio

Published: 11/01/2015


Synopsis

When "metadata" became breaking news, appearing in stories about surveillance by the National Security Agency, many members of the public encountered this once-obscure term from information science for the first time. Should people be reassured that the NSA was "only" collecting metadata about phone calls -- information about the caller, the recipient, the time, the duration, the location -- and not recordings of the conversations themselves? Or does phone call metadata reveal more than it seems? In this book, Jeffrey Pomerantz offers an accessible and concise introduction to metadata.

In the era of ubiquitous computing, metadata has become infrastructural, like the electrical grid or the highway system. We interact with it or generate it every day. It is not, Pomerantz tell us, just "data about data." It is a means by which the complexity of an object is represented in a simpler form. For example, the title, the author, and the cover art are metadata about a book. When metadata does its job well, it fades into the background; everyone (except perhaps the NSA) takes it for granted.

Pomerantz explains what metadata is, and why it exists. He distinguishes among different types of metadata -- descriptive, administrative, structural, preservation, and use -- and examines different users and uses of each type. He discusses the technologies that make modern metadata possible, and he speculates about metadata's future. By the end of the book, readers will see metadata everywhere. Because, Pomerantz warns us, it's metadata's world, and we are just living in it.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Travis on February 09, 2016

Necessary reading for anyone in the library and information sciences field. NECESSARY.......more

Goodreads review by André on August 21, 2019

NOT JUST DATA ABOUT DATA - "a statement about a potentially informative object" - "a means by which the complexity of an object is represented in a simpler form" to the end of discovering things more easily - proper terminology: distinguishes descriptive metadata, administrative-, preservation-, p......more

Goodreads review by James on June 25, 2016

The great thing about the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series that I always pitch to people is that it tends to cover topics that a lot of people think they understand, or at least understand enough, but if you read these expertly crafted books, you realize "Oh, I guess I didn't really know much ab......more

Goodreads review by Mary Elisabeth on May 30, 2021

I had to read this for class. It gave me a great general overview of metadata, what it is, how it is used, and how it will continue to be used in the future. Even so, it was still a little over my head. I am, however, glad for what I learned from it, it will help me understand the rest of the metada......more

Goodreads review by Kerry on June 28, 2023

This book is written for a beginner to understand data analysis, and the authors uses libraries’ book cataloging system as an analogy which most readers can relate to easily. I like that he uses Jewish references like reading from a Torah scroll as an example of how earlier texts were more difficult......more