Jaedyn Ouellette - Metadata & Databases
From my understanding, metadata is data which describes and explains other data. The textbook splits metadata into three groups, descriptive, administrative, and operational. In my previous studies of coding and web standards, I became most familiar with descriptive metadata which is used to simply describe and identify types of data. The textbook states administrative data helps organize large sets of data and operational metadata gives data specific roles. Previous to these chapters I was unaware of the other types of metadata but can see how important each role can be in giving data meaning.
My definition of a database would be an organized collection of large amounts of data stored to make locating and retrieving easier. This section taught me a lot of new terms and skills which definitely expanded my understanding of databases and how they work. Rational databases definitely seem a little daunting to me in terms of creating one. Having multiple spreadsheets all interconnected and complimentary of each other feels big and confusing. I understand the importance of them and how they create the databases we know and use today, but the thought of creating one myself seems challenging when factoring in how many elements you need to keep track of across all spreadsheets.
Metadata is connected to the data itself which is organized into databases which appear to be the backbone of DH in this intricate layered web of digitized data. I view each chapter of this textbook as a layer of DH, each going deeper and deeper into the concepts or research and creating. These two chapters seemed to be a little of both. When doing research for a project, databases can be largely helpful in finding lots of information easily and in one place. Databases themself are a DH project which means metadata is largely important for creating databases. It can help us correctly categorize data, give it names, and make it more identifiable and easily connected across platforms.
In my project, I could see how metadata and databases were used in the research aspect, even if only in the background. When collecting data, they likely had to search large databases which are built using metadata meaning they interacted with both of these topics, possibly without fully realizing it. The project itself could also be considered a database. It holds categories of information for many streets along Broadway making it an organized collection of large amounts of data - just like my definition for databases stated above.
I like how you described each chapter as another “layer” of DH because I’ve also started to realize how much is happening behind the scenes of a digital project. I especially relate to what you said about relational databases seeming confusing when you actually think about creating one yourself. It seems simple when we are just searching a finished database, but building one means deciding how all of the different information should connect. This also makes me think differently about my analysis of the MFA’s Homer and the Epics. I’ve mostly focused on what visitors actually see, like the artwork, descriptions, and audio, but metadata and databases are what allow those different materials to be organized and connected in the first place. I think this will matter for our UNH curation work too. We’ll have to think beyond which objects we want to include and consider how we label them, what information we record about them, and how someone else will be able to find and understand those objects later on.
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