Content Metadata Standards: Libraries, Publishers, and More

Executive Summary

This white paper describes the origin and use of the most well-known metadata standards. Metadata adds value to content for two reasons: it makes it easier for a publisher’s customers to find and consume that content, and it makes it easier for product developers at the publisher to identify content that could be used for new products that bring in new revenue.

Customized metadata can add value that helps differentiate a publisher’s content from their competition’s, but there’s no use reinventing any wheels. If an existing metadata standard defines metadata fields that a publisher needs, the use of that standard makes it easier to take advantage of software that knows about that standard, as well as to integrate the content with other content that also does so.

Standardized metadata also adds value to content being exchanged between business partners. If company A provides content to company B with accompanying metadata, that metadata only adds value for company B if the two companies are using the same standard. If company A is powerful enough that their approach becomes a de facto standard, it’s a good position to be in, but a standard is more likely to be a product of cooperative work among multiple companies in the same market...