Introduction

The development of computers revolutionized the way in which information can be retrieved. In 1945, Vannevar Bush envisioned, among other things, “a machine for the storage and retrieval of documents” in his article “As We May Think” (Rubin, 2004, p. 34). With the increasing use of computers throughout the twentieth century, the field of information science experienced a change in the way information was accessed- “a shift in emphasis away from the item that held the information to an emphasis on accessing the content of the information” (Rubin, 2004, p. 34). But how does one decipher which content is relevant to one’s information needs? Simply stated, metadata provides the descriptive information about resources to aid in the discovery, identification, management, retrieval, and preservation of units of information (Taylor, 2004, p. 139). While the concept of metadata is not new to library and information science, it continues to evolve with computer technology into the twenty-first century.

References

Bush, V. (1945). As we may think. Atlantic Monthly, 176, 101-108. Retrieved May 14, 2008, from http://www.ps.uni-sb.de/~duchier/pub/vbush/vbush-all.shtml.
Rubin, R.E. (2004). Foundations of library and information science (2nd ed.). New York: Neal-Schuman.
Taylor, A.G. (2004). The organization of information (2nd ed.). Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited.