FW: understanding metadata , was Re: SIGIA-L: future directions for IA

• Next message: christina wodtke: "SIGIA-L: San Francisco IA/UE cocktail hour annoucement"
• Previous message: Karl Fast: "Re: SIGIA-L: Site rules, errors and design for the masses"
• Maybe in reply to: Peter Merholz: "understanding metadata , was Re: SIGIA-L: future directions for IA"
• Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ] [ attachment ]

Lou Rosenfeld wrote:
>I think that users aren't after information, they're after *meaning*. If
>you look at it that way, the whole IA landscape suddenly takes on a
> different look.

Probably a lot depends on a type of user and their goals. Talking about
research library users, for instance, I believe they are mostly after the
documents itself (information) and there is not much that an IA or a
librarian can do to help uncover the meaning of this information.

However, metadata helps researchers find the information or data
their are looking for. Properly organized metadata and easy navigation
help them accessing the documents and sometimes find relationships
that otherwise would not be easy or even possible to come by.

It is impossible to be an expert in all subjects, but as an IA
working in this area, one has to understand the research value of
different document, library research models, deal directly with
researchers, librarians and learn from them.

Kirill Fesenko
Online Publishing
East View Publications

• Next message: christina wodtke: "SIGIA-L: San Francisco IA/UE cocktail hour annoucement"
• Previous message: Karl Fast: "Re: SIGIA-L: Site rules, errors and design for the masses"
• Maybe in reply to: Peter Merholz: "understanding metadata , was Re: SIGIA-L: future directions for IA"
• Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ] [ attachment ]

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Sun Nov 23 2003 - 22:54:48 EST