A metadata repository is a database that stores data about other data, such as browser agents and page elements. It ensures consistency and enables consistent search of data on specific websites. Metadata is different across platforms, devices, and applications, but a global metadata repository may be in the future.
A metadata repository is a database. More specifically it is a database that stores data about other data. Websites use metadata to provide descriptions about the types of data they contain. Metadata can contain things like browser agents (Mozilla Firefox or Internet Explorer) and other information describing the elements in pages.
The metadata repository is one way to ensure metadata consistency. Allowing this data to be stored in a database and referenced by applications or pages that need it keeps the data consistent. If metadata is referenced as needed, from a metadata repository, the storage space used to store these descriptions of a site’s data will also be less.
A metadata repository, when used appropriately, can enable the consistent search of data stored on specific websites, such as those maintained within a single organization, and made available when the information is needed. Since there is no single metadata repository, the information is not easily usable across companies. As technology grows and more and more Internet organizations find the need for these massive amounts of data intelligence, there will likely be an attempt to centralize the data held in metadata repositories.
Metadata is different across platforms, devices, and applications. Devices like an iPod contain music and video data. The metadata for data stored on the device would be things like artist name, album name, and track information. Through the use of the software, the user of the device and adds or changes the metadata of any song or video at any time. Digital cameras also record metadata about the photographs they take, such as image size, camera type, date and time information, and other details. Websites like Flickr can read this information from photos uploaded to their servers and allow users to search for images taken by a certain type of camera or in a certain format.
Microsoft Windows also stores metadata for things like Word documents. Data is easier to edit or access from Windows Vista than previous versions of Windows, but data such as author name, date accessed, date created, file size, and much more information is stored for each file. Windows will not ask you or the creator of the file to populate many of the items it can collect. Some things are populated only if the user wants to populate them, others are logged when certain actions occur, making them invisible to the user.
A global metadata repository is likely somewhere in the future, and there will be some who don’t want to share all of this information, but a lot of it is used by services that are growing in popularity every day, and sharing this information does nothing but that improve these Services.
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