Descriptive Metadata relates to a piece of information and gives you extra detail about it. Descriptive metadata is data that tells you things such as who made a file, when or where it was made and its size. For example, a title of a picture. Let's say you take a photo of the Roseau Museum. The location, time the photo was taken, and the resolution of the image are considered as descriptive metadata since it is unique to that photo taken.  

Structural Metadata relates to data from a variety of a large number of files and tells you how similar bits of information are stored and what they mean by describing their fields. One example of structural metadata would be describing how pages in a book should be organized in order to form a chapter.  

Administrative Metadata is data that provides administrators with information to help manage a resource. For example, it includes details like the date a file was created, file size, type, and archiving requirements.  

After I read the article “Understanding Metadata," I became aware of how much metadata makes the jobs of librarians easier in terms of archiving and preservation. Since metadata tells you information about i.e., books, a Librarian can take that information about the book and use it to figure out what has to be done with the book so that it can be found in the Future. Information like weight and the physical material that a book is made of makes it easier for a librarian to know where and how to store this book. This information can also be used to figure out how to restore and preserve an old book.  

I am now aware that not only do I use and have access to the metadata when I visit sites like Amazon, Google, and Twitter, I also create it every time I take a photo or a video.

Text Encoding Initiative is probably the most important project in the Digital Humanities Field. It provides guidelines for the digital creation of every type of data created and used by Digital Humanists. This data includes manuscripts, archival documents, etc. TEI is used to create digital documents or databases. It also facilitates information management and web page creation. One advantage of TEI and XML software is that the information it captures looks the same to every piece of software that uses it since it is just a sequence of machine-readable characters.

I am now aware of how many digital humanists use Markup during their research and analysis projects. Markup-related techniques go hand in hand with most encoding activities. The Markup was traditionally used when editors would mark up their manuscripts with annotations or symbols on a paper copy of a text e.g. 'center' as an indication of how the printed version should look. Markup facilitated automated apparatus and supported specification and modification of documents.

Word Count: 549 words

CITATIONS:

Schreibman, S., Siemens, R., & Unsworth, J. (2004). Companion to Digital Humanities (Blackwell Companions to Literature and Culture) (Hardcover). Blackwell Publishing Professional. http://www.digitalhumanities.org/companion/

Hodge, G. M. (2004). Understanding metadata. Retrieved October 6, 2021, from https://www.lter.uaf.edu/metadata_files/UnderstandingMetadata.pdf