Week 4 Readings

Databases
Wikipedia
I felt like this article was a little abstract. I've used simple databases before, but with few examples I'm not sure that this article meant anything to me. For instance, I'm pretty sure that the database program I've used before (Dbase in Open Office) was a relational model. So what does a hierarchical or network model look like? How is it different to use? I thought that the history was interesting, but other than that it seemed a little over my head.

Metadata

This article is really a piece of meta-metadata. It made me realize how much metadata is really floating around. The article makes it seem that this data is almost as important as the information it refers to. The layers that form around a piece of information during its lifetime at a museum are very interesting. We start with a document, it has to be described in paperwork to be accepted into the archive. Then it is inventoried, then catalogued, and placed in a finding aid. This finding aid could end up in an online database where it will be marked with several search criteria. The hard copy will likely be put into a binder, which will likely have a table of contents, and be catalogued itself. And this is only a very basic example. It sort of makes my head spin a little.

Dublin Core Metadata Model

I thought that this was very neat. I liked the axiomatic approach of thier organization. The project seems very large and all emcompassing, and I wonder what effect this will have on retrieveablitly. What is the point of a table of contents so large that nobody can get through it? Perhaps I was misinterpretting what they were actually planning on doing, but that was the impression that I got.