From Gutenberg to Berners-Lee: the Need for Metadata

Abstract

Metadata allow us to describe and classify research information in a systematic way, and as such they are indispensable for searching and finding academic publications and other results of research. In order to make full use of the information discovery potential of the Internet, the 'formal' and 'content' metadata commonly used in repositories should be supplemented with the 'context' metadata as stored in a CRIS. Whereas the "traditional" repository metadata stem from the “Gutenberg Era” – the past few centuries in which print on paper was the main research information and communication tool – and focus on (the description of) the individual publication, the context metadata used in a CRIS is more appropriate for our age of electronic and networked information supply.