The field of metadata has undergone a great deal of change in the seven years since the first edition of this book was published. Many of these changes are closely tied to advances in Semantic Web technologies and in information technologies in general. As a result of these developments, some of the terminologies and standards used in the 2008 edition became outdated; at the same time, newer innovations and practices in metadata were noticeably absent from our coverage. Hence, the text badly needed an update.

During the revision, we updated the book's contents with our analysis of job descriptions, theses and dissertations, published journal articles, and conference proceedings related to metadata from the last several years. We drew on feedback from the community—from instructors of metadata classes, students, practitioners, and researchers—and on our own experience of teaching metadata courses and conducting metadata research in an attempt to uncover the most significant metadata developments and practices from the last seven years.

Returning readers may notice that the new edition has undergone a major structural change. Formerly comprised of four parts, it is now divided into five:

• I. Fundamentals of metadata
• II. Metadata vocabulary building blocks
• III. Metadata services
• IV. Metadata outlook in research
• V. Metadata standards

The HOME page will lead you to the details of the contents of each part and chapter.

About The Authors

Marcia Lei Zeng is Professor of Library and Information Science at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, where she teaches knowledge organization systems (KOS), metadata, and cultural heritage informatics. She holds a PhD from the School of Information Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh and an MA from Wuhan University in China. Her major research interests include KOS, Linked Data, metadata and markup languages, smart data and big data, database quality control, semantic technologies, and digital humanities. Her scholarly publications consist of more than eighty papers and five books, as well as over two hundred national and international conference presentations and invited lectures. Her research projects have received funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF), Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), OCLC, Ohio Board of Regents, Fulbright, and other foundations. Dr. Zeng has chaired or served on committees, working groups, and executive boards for the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), Special Libraries Association (SLA), Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T), the US National Information Standards Organization (NISO), the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI), International Society for Knowledge Organization (ISKO), and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

Website: https://www.kent.edu/ischool/marcia-lei-zeng-phd

Jian Qin is Professor at the School of Information Studies, Syracuse University. Her research interest areas include metadata, knowledge modeling and organization, ontologies, and scientific communication. She has published more than sixty papers and has given presentations at numerous national and international conferences and workshops. Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), OCLC Online Library Computer Center, and Institute for Scientific Information (ISI). She teaches information organization, metadata, and fundamentals of digital data. Dr. Qin is currently a coleader for the DCMI Community for Science and Metadata (DC-SAM) and serves as a member on the DCMI Advisory Board, as well as a member of the editorial board for two international journals. Dr. Qin holds a PhD degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and an MLIS from the University of Western Ontario.

Website: https://jianqin.metadataetc.org/

Acknowledgement