When one designates meta data or Metainformationen generally data, which contain information about other data. With the described data it often acts around larger data collections (documents) like books, data bases or files. Thus also data are called of characteristics of an object (for example family names) meta data. While the term is relatively new "“meta data"”, its principle is among other things century for a long time bibliothekarische practice.

Examples

Typical meta data to a book are for example the name of the author, the edition, the feature year, the publishing house and the ISBN. Among the meta data of a computer file among other things the file name is to rank the rights of access and the date of the last change.

Distinction data - meta data

A generally accepted distinction between meta data and normal data does not exist however, since the designation is a question of the point of view: For the reader of a book contents are the actual data, while the name of the author or number of the edition is meta data. For the publisher of a book catalog these two characteristics are however directly interesting and might be regarded therefore as actual data.

If one tries to differentiate between data and meta data, then it is to be introduced helpfully the "“purpose"” as term. The purpose determines the result; in order to be able to serve a certain purpose - to reach a certain result, - meta data are needed. The result can consist of data, especially meta data can be in their role as data part of the result.

Example:

Purpose: Search within a library for all locations (card index numbers) of available books of a certain author

Meta data: "“Name of the author"” and "“available"”

Result: "“Card index numbers"” (over the card index number the location is capable of being developed)

Use of meta data

In many cases no conscious separation between object and Metaebene takes place. For example one speaks to look for in a catalog a book and not only its meta data. When using meta data it is often expected that they are by direct coupling with the utilizable data inseparable components of an final, describing system.

Meta data are used often in order to describe and make thus information resources better discoverable and to manufacture relations between the materials. This presupposes usually only a development with a certain standardisation degree (for example by Bibliothekari sets of rules).

Storage of meta data

For the storage and transmission of meta data there is a set of data formats and data models (data models, as for example, can Dublin core be expressed also in different formats). Further under meta data formats.

See also: Text Encoding initiative (TEI), resource Description Framework (RDF)

For the storage of meta data there are different possibilities:

1. In the document. Like that always also the author and the feature year are registered in a book. In HTML documents by Meta tags language, which can be evaluated for example by search machines to author, enterprises and key words are indicated.
2. In assigned reference books, for example for a book in a library in the library catalog.
3. With computer files in the file attributes. Most file systems permit only exactly specified meta data in file attributes; other (e.g. HPFS by means of extended attributes) permit the association of arbitrary data with a file. Also it is usual to accommodate the Meta information "“type of file"” in the file name; typically in the Extension.

See also: Attribute, characteristic, semantic Web, data catalog, Repositorium,

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