Week 4 Readings - Introduction to Metadata Pathways to Digital Information by Anne J. Gilliland

This is an impressive article written by an expert in the field. I'm acquainted with the term metadata in the traditional sense in my daily work with our database; I use and edit data dictionaries daily and write documentation for use of them regularly. However, I was unaware of how extensive and varied it's use has become. There is an entire industry now dedicated to it. I know it may sound boring, but I find this to be a very interesting area when applied to library science. It's very satisfying to make order out of chaos and while I still love wandering through a library, knowing exactly where to find exactly what you need is vital and has not always been easy to accomplish, even in a brick and mortar library. I use online library sources and databases regularly and at times trying to find relevant information is extremely frustrating; I suspect because it is either not well organized in the metadata aspect, the metadata isn't adequately described, or I am too impatient to pay attention to it. As more and more information becomes digitized, the work in this area will be an essential aid to using the information. It is the 21st century's version of the librarian's responsibility as the "gatekeeper" of information.