Analysis: XML and Metadata

                Extensible Mark-up Language or XML is a structure for digital data that allows the information to be output in several different formats. The structure is a sort of warehouse that holds the information and allows access to that information, the way it appears to the consumer is based on what medium they use to access it. This allows users from all different platforms to utilize the information without needing to store the data in a multitude of programs. The data is also searchable making it convenient to search engines.

                Metadata is the information about the information. The best example I read on this was about the library: the data is the title of the book and the metadata is the location of the book on the shelves. Many times the metadata is unseen by the end user, it is hidden data that is use to sort and find the desired information.

                Metadata helps when someone is searching for your book. Using a simple search engine you might have a hard time finding if you don’t know the title of author of the book, but if the publication has a decent amount of metadata you could find it with subject, keywords, era, or any other tags attached within the XML. The metadata can also be used to give the causal searcher more information about the publication. Such as short descriptions, awards cover photo, or anything that could help the consumer decide this is the information they need.

                The way the data is organized will determine how accessible the information is. The hierarchy of how the information is important because many different programs will be used to search and read the information and many of these programs will view it differently. The data could also be moved around from its original storage location to a new one. When these locations change the search paths could change if they are not set up carefully to begin with. All if this could affect how searchable or findable your information becomes.

                All this information is important when putting together our digital publication because we want our data to be used. If we go through the process of putting together a book we want that book to be used and people can use it if they can’t find it. This also saves people from needing to dig too deep into a publication to decide if it is what they are looking for.