Blog 3: Metadata and Databases

 Chapters 4 and 5 from the Digital Humanities Coursebook help to identify metadata, databases, and database design.

Metadata is the specific information of a digital asset or resource. An example of metadata from the book would be “…the date, size, and format of the file” (Drucker 52). From the chapters read, I believe that metadata is a way of structuring data and categorizing it so it can be more easily navigated. A good metaphor that the book provided that helped clarify the definition of metadata is “Without metadata, information in files would be like books without covers or title pages on shelves without labels” (Drucker 52). Clearly, metadata is an essential part of digital humanities as it holds the power of identification knowledge and keeps data organized. There are a few different types of metadata such as descriptive metadata, administrative metadata, and operational metadata. Descriptive metadata involves metadata schemes that are systems of describing or naming objects/data. This is the most common kind of metadata. Administrative metadata is used to categorize data into their type or how it is used. And operational metadata is used to describe what is needed to keep something functioning digitally. To my understanding, it is describing the code that is behind the scenes of digital humanities.

Metadata came into play in the project, Exposed, with the quotes and audio clips that came from inmates because it helped to organize the data based on their file type. The data used in this project was digitized from outside sources. Metadata allowed the creators of Exposed to easily navigate and choose the data types they needed to make their point.

Databases are crucial to organizing data, however relational databases are more suitable for data that has complex relationships as compared to flat databases. Flat databases are simple, single spreadsheets while relational databases are “composed of multiple tables that separate different types of information to make it more efficient to manage and easier to control” (Drucker 70). Tables in relational databases are separated by independent and dependent data. Databases are a way to easily manage data and make deeper connections between different data sets.

My project is not a database itself, but it used sources that are databases to gather the evidence needed to show the suffering of the prisoners when the COVID-19 pandemic began. The databases helped the creators to find and connect data to try and prove their thesis statement.