Metadata Strategies and Archival Description: Comparing Apples to Oranges
Abstract
Advocates of a "metadata systems approach" to the description of electronic records argue that metadata's capacity to provide descriptive information about the context of electronic records creation will obviate, or reduce significantly, the need for traditional archival description. This article examines the assumptions about the nature of archival description and of metadata on which metadata strategies are grounded for the purposes of ascertaining the following: whether the skepticism concerning the capacity of traditional description to meet the challenges posed by the so-called "second generation" of electronic records is justified, whether the use of metadata as archival description is consistent with their nature and purpose, and whether metadata are capable of serving archival descriptive purposes.
RÉSUMÉ
Les tenants de l'approche «méta informationnelle» de la description des dossiers informatiques soutiennent que la capacité de la méta information de fournir de l'information de nature descriptive sur la nature du contexte de la création des dossiers informatiques va parer à, ou réduire de manière significative, la nécessité de la description archivistique traditionnelle. Cet article examine les suppositions à propos de la nature de la description archivistique et de la méta information sur lesquelles les stratégies méta informationnelles sont fondées dans le but de vérifier les questions suivantes: si le scepticisme entourant la capacité de la description traditionnelle de relever les défis de la prétendue «deuxième génération» des dossiers informatiques est justifié; si l'utilisation de la méta information comme description archivistique est compatible avec sa nature et son but, et enfin, si la méta information est capable de servir les buts de la description archivistique.
Authors of manuscripts accepted for publication retain copyright in their work. They are required to sign the Agreement on Authors' Rights and Responsibilities that permits Archivaria to publish and disseminate the work in print and electronically. In the same agreement, authors are required to confirm that "the material submitted for publication in Archivaria, both in its paper and electronic versions, including reproductions of other works (e.g. photographs, maps, etc.) does not infringe upon any existing copyright." Authors of manuscripts accepted for publication retain copyright in their work and are able to publish their articles in institutional repositories or elsewhere as long as the piece is posted after its original appearance on archivaria.ca. Any reproduction within one year following the date of this agreement requires the permission of the General Editor.
