Before my class on metadata began, I spent some time over the break reading about various epistemologies (roughly speaking, theories of how we as human beings come to know what we know). This reading has had a significant influence on my perception of metadata creation. For example, I am already wondering to myself if descriptive metadata is really simply descriptive of an information resource as it exists in reality or descriptive of our social conceptions of those information resources. Or is it both?
In my reflection on this conundrum, I decided to take a look around at what literature was already out there on this topic. I know I can’t be the first or last person to have considered this problem. I was pleasantly surprised when I came across an amazing article from the resource, Digital Humanities Quarterly. In his article, “XML, Interoperability and the Social Construction of Markup Languages: The Library Example”, Jerome McDonough discusses the problem of interoperabiltiy between institutions. Even at the level of syntax where institutions are using the same XML-based encoding standards, metadata exchange is proving more complicated than expected. The significant point highlighted by McDonough, however, is that the problem is not simply a technical one, but is a combination of both technical and social factors. In other words, interoperability is hindered not only by technical issues, but by the different ways various cultures conceptualize and interpret hierarchies and categories for their metadata.
At this point, I have not completely finished the article, but it is comforting to know that there are already theories of the socially conditioned nature of metadata. Even with metadata standards, perfect interoperability has not been achieved. But the big question for me is: does that mean we should give it up, then? I already have my inclinations (and I imagine most metadata people would be with me or they wouldn’t be metadata people), but I’m interested to hear what other people think.
What are your thoughts?
The Neolibrarian 
Interesting…my first inclination is to say it is both. I will have to check out the article you referenced.
i tend to think of metadata as constructed. my takeaway from doctorow in the “metacrap” article is that our systems of representation are flawed because we’re flawed, but they can still be useful to the extent we recognize their/our limitations.
Absolutely, Molly. The kind of perspective you mention, and the one to which I most relate, is something along the lines of critical realism. This theory believes that while our descriptions and perceptions of reality are socially conditioned, that does not mean that human beings aren’t able to speak meaningfully about the material world. Therefore, it is at least worth trying to to create metadata.
Though the article gets a bit too technical for me in places, I find the points brought up intriguing. Your question as to the nature of metadata creation in terms of relative and objective realities is quite the fascinating topic and one that I would love to see some deeper exploration of. It very much reminds me of my historiography classes and the notion of whether there is an objective truth in the writing of history. I have a strong inclination to believe that metadata creation is always influenced, to some extent, on the background experiences, knowledge, and perception of the creator, but does not necessarily inhibit the ability of said metadata to be reflective of an objective reality or truth. Great stuff here James, and some very challenging ideas to explore.
It’s as a student of history, though it may seem strange to some, that has brought me down this path. I’ve always been fascinated by methodologies, and I’m not sure that that’s the case with most people. Metadata creation as you’ve mentioned, like history, is always susceptible to human meaning-making. That’s doesn’t mean that it’s useless, as many great comments and posts have demonstrated. In fact, we may just have to live with the fact that we will never present the objective reality (or essence) of any particular thing, even though we believe it’s there. That’s okay. That doesn’t mean that we are doomed to spinning our wheels. I think you and I, like others who have commented, would fall into the critical realist perspective (i.e., while all human meaning-making is subject to social processes, hierarchies, and discourses, that doesn’t mean that there is no essence to objects in the real world and that we can’t speak in some way accurately about them). I realize the label can be annoying and far too encompassing of diverse perspectives, but it’s the best description I have of my and most people’s perspectives that I’ve heard. Thanks for the great feedback!
This is a fascinating post. I don’t see how social conception could not influence metadata. Surely metadata is not purely objective. Culture could potentially affect metadata in many ways. Different cultures may construct metadata based on their perceptions or ideas and may interpret this metadata based on their own perception as well. Also, I know this is off topic, but translation may be lost and therefore metadata description could be altered.
Thanks for the comment. In my post after this one, I mention in a reply to a comment that language in and of itself is socially constructed and, therefore, attempts to speak consistently across all cultures and times in reference to objects as they exist in reality are problematic (but not impossible, I might add). This would also apply to your comment on translation being lost.
Good posts and comments! This problem of interoperability is largely solved in “closed” organizing environments (i.e., library cataloging) due to the presence of a network of trained catalogers and high-level tools such as the LCSH and LCNAF. Two additional complications for metadata include having to describe digital object and the fact that various organizations don’t have items held in common (for example, a lot of libraries have the book “The Shining”, and that’s been one of the economic drivers for catalogers to cooperate and share their work).
One other advantage that catalogers have is the presences of reference librarians in libraries to assist when users need help … that’s not always possible for web-accessible digital repositories.
Great post and I like that you included a survey. Metadata creation can never be an exact science, but having standards, controlled vocabularies, and information professionals sure does help. We should never give up!
Never give up, never surrender.