Metadata as Knowledge

Abstract

Introduction to “Metadata as Knowledge,” a special issue of KULA: Knowledge Creation, Dissemination, and Preservation Studies that takes up the critical relationship between metadata and knowledge. The issue includes articles and project reports that address metadata, hidden knowledge, and labour; standards versus expression; knowledge sharing and reuse of metadata; forays into open and shared knowledge; linked data, metadata translation, and discovery; and machine learning and knowledge graphs. Although rarely an object of notice or scrutiny by its users, metadata governs the circulation of information and has the power to name, broadcast, normalize, oppress, and exclude. As the contributions to this issue demonstrate, metadata is knowledge, and metadata creators, systems, and practices must contend with how metadata means.

Keywords

• metadata
• linked data
• knowledge organization
• cataloguing