Libraries and the LGBT community

Stained glass window from the Pride Library at the University of Western Ontario

In the post-Stonewall era, the role of libraries in providing information and services to LGBTQ individuals has been a topic of discussion among library professionals. Libraries can often play an important role for LGBTQ individuals looking to find information about coming out, health, and family topics, as well as leisure reading. In the past 50 years, advocate organizations for LGBTQ content in libraries have emerged, and numerous theorists have discussed various aspects of LGBTQ library service including privacy concerns, programming, collection development considerations and librarian/staff education needs, as well as special services for juvenile and teen patrons.

History

Commensurate with the LGBT rights movement in other arenas, LGBTQ activists began visibly advocating for greater representation in libraries in 1969. In 1970, the Task Force on Gay Liberation formed within the American Library Association (ALA). Now known as the Rainbow Round Table, this organization is the oldest LGBTQ professional organization in the United States. Barbara Gittings became its coordinator in 1971. She pushed the American Library Association for more visibility for gays and lesbians in the profession. She staffed a kissing booth at the Dallas convention of the ALA, underneath the banner "Hug a Homosexual", with a "women only" side and a "men only" side. When no one took advantage of it, she and Patience and Sarah author Alma Routsong (pen name: Isabel Miller) kissed in front of rolling television cameras. In describing its success, despite most of the reaction being negative, Gittings said, "We needed to get an audience. So we decided, let's show gay love live. We were offering free—mind you, free—same-sex kisses and hugs. Let me tell you, the aisles were mobbed, but no one came into the booth to get a free hug. So we hugged and kissed each other. It was shown twice on the evening news, once again in the morning. It put us on the map."

In the early 1970s, the Task Force on Gay Liberation campaigned to have books about the gay liberation movement at the Library of Congress reclassified from HQ 71–471 ("Abnormal Sexual Relations, Including Sexual Crimes"). In 1972, after receiving a letter requesting the reclassification, the Library of Congress agreed to make the shift, reclassifying those books into a newly created category, HQ 76.5 ("Homosexuality, Lesbianism—Gay Liberation Movement, Homophile Movement").

Gay rights pioneer Barbara Gittings (July 31, 1932 – February 18, 2007) advocated for a revolution in the inclusion and cataloging of LGBTQ materials in public libraries to create a more positive, supportive, informative environment for all members of the community.

In the 1980s, literature began to emerge which examined information seeking behaviors of gay and lesbian library patrons. The 1981 book The Joy of Cataloging by Sanford Berman outlined the difficulties of accessing gay and lesbian books and information. In 1988, the Task Force on Gay Liberation released the "International thesaurus of gay and lesbian index terms," aimed at standardizing terms used for cataloging gay and lesbian-related library materials, and changing or removal of pejorative Library of Congress Subject Headings in relation to same-sex attraction and the LGBT community.

Four years later, in 1992, Ellen Greenblatt and Cal Gough published the first collection of essays about the information needs of gay and lesbian patrons, entitled Gay and Lesbian Library Service. The work has since been revised as Serving LGBTIQ Library and Archives Users and remains influential.

In 1992, American Libraries published a photo of the Gay and Lesbian Task Force (now the Rainbow Round Table) on the cover of its July/August issue, drawing both criticism and praise from the library world. Some commenters called the cover "in poor taste" and accused American Libraries of "glorifying homosexuality," while others were supportive of the move. Christine Williams, who wrote about the controversy in her 1998 essay A Lesbigay Gender Perplex: Sexual Stereotyping and Professional Ambiguity in Librarianship, concluded that in the mid-90s, the library world was "not an especially welcoming place to gays and lesbians."

In 2007, the Rainbow Project Task Force began within the ALA to promote the presence of LGBTQ juvenile and young adult literature in library collections. The group now, now called the Rainbow Book List Committee maintains an annotated bibliography of LGBTQ titles for youth and teens, as well the yearly Rainbow List featuring the best of LGBTQ YA and children's titles.

In 2010, the GLBT Round Table announced a new committee, the Over the Rainbow Committee. This committee annually compiles a bibliography of books that show the GLBT community in a favorable light and reflects the interests of adults. The bibliographies provide guidance to libraries in the selection of positive GLBT materials.

After the passage of equal marriage in the State of New York in 2011, the Research Library at the Buffalo History Museum in Buffalo, New York, became the first known library in the United States to collect wedding memorabilia from legally-wed same-sex couples.

Challenges

Legal restrictions

Libraries have been legally restricted from providing LGBTQ materials historically, in the United Kingdom Section 28 prohibited public libraries run by local authorities to 'promote homosexuality' leading to libraries scaling back what they delivered whilst the law was in place 1988-2003.

The passage of House Bills 1557 and 1467 in Florida state legislature in 2022 raised concerns over a possible increase in limitations on LGBT materials in school libraries. Although neither bill explicitly targets such materials, faculty from schools across the state have reported being directed to remove previously accepted LGBTQ books from their classrooms and school libraries that could now be deemed harmful or offensive to minors under the bills. A proposal to expand HB 1557 to cover all school grades (the original bill prohibits certain materials from being presented to children in Kindergarten through third grade) is now under consideration.

Privacy

In their 2006 study of LGBTQ book circulation in an academic library, Stephanie Mathson and Jeffery Hancks found that LGBTQ titles were 20% more likely to circulate via a self-checkout machine than a traditional circulation desk staffed by a person. However, their sample size was small, so study results may be inconclusive.

Need for library staff education

Providing unbiased service to all patrons is one of the central tenets of the Code of Ethics of the American Library Association. Articles dating back to Richard Ashby's 1987 piece entitled "Library Services to Lesbian and Gay People" have argued that this commitment to neutrality should provide the foundation for complete library service for all people, regardless of sexual orientation or gender presentation. Ashby argues that libraries, especially in their role as providers of literature for pleasure reading, can support LGBTQ individuals overcome a sense of isolation within the larger community. He emphasizes the importance of staff education to provide all LGBTQ individuals a safe space within the library, including:

• Training staff to work with diverse populations, specifically LGBTQ patrons
• Comprehensive and effective collection development policies for LGBTQ materials
• Librarian education to gain familiarity with publishers or sources for LGBTQ materials, including the utilization of local bookstores or community groups.

Echoing many of Ashby's assertions in her 2007 paper entitled "Can Scottish public library services claim they are socially inclusive of all minority groups when lesbian fiction is still so inaccessible?", Jaqueline Goldthorp outlines some of the challenges that lesbians face when trying to find lesbian fiction in Scottish libraries. She ties her study of lesbian literature to the importance of reading fiction on the psychological well-being of women, arguing that women often turn to fiction reading for self-affirmation and identity building. In addition, lesbian fiction titles can be priced up to 30% higher than non-lesbian titles, meaning that, for many low-income or working class lesbians, libraries are the only means of access for these titles Goldthorp surveyed 26 Scottish libraries and found that, in 2007, the majority had less than ten books labelled as "lesbian fiction," and almost no recent award-winning titles. She suggests diversity training and education about methods and resources for providing service to lesbians for library staff as a way of promoting greater inclusion.

Mehra and Braquet's 2007 article "Library and Information Science Professionals as Community Action Researchers in an Academic Setting" expands further upon the central role of librarians in promoting LGBTQ acceptance, noting that the profession is "uniquely situated to provide access to LGBT literature and information."

Book bans

Conservative objections certain titles available in public and school libraries have had a resurgence in 2021 and 2022, USA states such as Florida, Wyoming and Texas. One legislator in Texas proposed a list of books to be banned in school libraries, which when analyzed were found to be 62% LGBTQ titles.

The American Library Association maintains a lists of the most challenged books of the year, as well as the most challenged books of the decade, using data collected by their Office of Intellectual Freedom. This data has been collected for three decades now, and materials relating to LGBTQ topics make up a notable portion of these lists time and time again. For example, a study found that "[f]rom 2001 to 2015, sixteen books (22%) on ALA’s top ten list were challenged for homosexuality." 

Nonprofit organization PEN America has similarly been collecting data on book ban attempts in schools across the nation. Their 2021-2022 report found that out of the 1,648 unique book titles banned during the period studied (July 2021 - June 2022), over 40% of them dealt with LGBTQ themes and/or have major characters that identify as members of the LGBTQ community. As the data PEN America pulls from is limited to publicly accessible records and news sources, it is possible the true scope of banned LGTBQ titles is much greater.

Collection development considerations

Barriers

In a 2005 article in the journal Progressive Librarian, Jennifer Downey argued that even award-winning books by or about LGBTQ individuals fail to make it into library collections. She cites internal censorship as one potential cause, as well as the assumption that library patrons who want LGBTQ titles will simply request them from other libraries via inter-library loan. In addition, she found that many librarians were unfamiliar with LGBTQ titles. To increase familiarity, she recommends reading LGBTQ book review sources and bringing others, including community members into the process, suggestions which she draws from Loverich and Degnan's 1999 article "Out of the Shelves".

Small publishers

A 2012 Publishers Weekly article cites the growing diversity of small presses that publish LGBTQ titles, but a decline in the traditional romance and erotica genres. The article also discusses the mainstreaming of LGBT literature, though emphasizes that even with wider acceptance of LGBTQ identities, the need for LGBTQ stories has not disappeared and that independent publishers are still the largest producers of LGBTQ literature. In his "Rainbow Family Collections", Jamie Naidoo also discusses challenges facing small specialized publishers of LGBTQ children's books and includes interviews with select publishing houses.

Advice for libraries

• Seek out LGBTQ-specific review sources, such as The Lambda Literary Review, and collection development tools.
• Conduct focus groups with communities to discover needs.
• Increase visibility of LGBTQ materials in the library by including them in regular displays or featuring them in pathfinders or book lists.
• Change collection development policies to specifically protect LGBTQ materials.
  • Vince Graziano notes that academic libraries should address both "the need for curricular and research materials, inherent in an academic setting, and the need for personal and recreational reading", as well as "the need for LGBTQ popular periodicals, which may serve a dual purpose." These popular periodicals are often overlooked, according to Graziano's study.
  • A study by Virginia Kay Williams and Nancy Deyoe notes that "many libraries supporting teacher education and library science programs have few or no holdings of recently published LGBTQ-themed youth literature", finding that "43 percent of libraries supporting NCATE or ALA accredited programs held fewer than ten Rainbow List titles". Williams and Deyoe recommend that libraries perform a targeted collection assessment to see if the needs of students are being met. Collections, and books available through loans, should "reflect a wide range of LGBTQ experiences", including both "older titles that remain important, and more recent titles so that students can become familiar with titles that reflect changing social trends".

LGBTQ, classification and subject headings

Before the 1960s, the term "homosexuality" was the basic search heading for most libraries that adopted the Library of Congress Subject Headings. According to LGBT librarian Steve Wolf, "homosexuality" was classified under "sexual deviations" until 1972, when it was moved to "sexual life". Since then, individuals who identify as LGBTQ have made major strides in reforming the subject headings that many libraries use. The Library of Congress added "Transgender people" and "Transgenderism" as main subject headings in 2007. Creating new and accurate headings for the LGBTQ community makes it easier for LGBTQ people to find information that is pertinent to their needs. Broadening these official vocabularies to affirm language and identities within the LGBTQ community creates broader acceptance for diverse gender and sexual identities.

Recent literature has approached the issue of library classification from a queer theory perspective. In her 2013 article "Queering the Catalog: Queer Theory and the Politics of Correction", librarian Emily Drabinski defines the relationship between LGBTQ identity and the library as a historically contingent one. For Drabinski, "there can be no "correct" categorical or linguistic structures, only those that discursively emerge and circulate in a particular context." Drabinski says that a queer approach to cataloging includes reference librarians and users, who can engage in dialogue about underlying biases and help dismantle oppressive language. In a 2014 article, Drabinski, Amber Billey and K.R. Roberto criticized RDA Rule 9.7, which forces catalogers to assign a gender when creating authority records, leaving out non-binary and gender-fluid identities. Marika Cifor uses queer theory to argue that hatred should be used as an organizing principle in LGBT archives. She writes that "examining the arrangement and description of hate mail and messages, archival collecting around hate crimes, and documenting and describing queer and trans self-hatred demonstrates that hatred is a useful lens for examining and deconstructing normative power and its affective circulations and structures."

Homosaurus has been an initiative introduced as an extensive LGBTQ+ controlled vocabulary.

LGBTQ children and teen services

A 2018 display of young adult books featuring LGBTQ+ characters or themes at the Barbara S. Ponce Public Library in Pinellas Park, Florida

Alexander Parks and others have identified libraries as potentially important safe places for LGBTQ youth and teens, especially in the face of bullying. He suggests the inclusion of LGBTQ titles in library displays or book talks to promote greater visibility. However, according to a 2005 study by Ann Curry, though many LGBTQ teens have the very similar concerns to their adult counterparts, librarians often do not answer their questions related to LGBTQ topics in a sensitive or welcoming manner. Studies by Carmichael and Greenblatt have emphasized that the library is an important place for teens who are coming out to find information because of the potential anonymity it provides. In his examination of public libraries in areas with large concentrations of same-sex families, Naidoo finds that many children's librarians are unaware of the LGBTQ families in their community and provide a mixed-bag of services, collections, and programs.

According to the Young Adult Library Services Association's information for being welcoming and inclusionary of trans teens at library programs offering a time for students to give their preferred names or pronouns when starting a program gives them the opportunity to let staff and fellow patrons know how they would prefer to be addressed.

Impact of the Internet

LGBTQ individuals were some of the early adopters of the internet, and are still represented in high percentages across social media. In addition, 55% of LGBTQ individuals who responded to a 2009 survey said that they read blogs, compared to 38% of heterosexual respondents. The internet can often be influential to young people seeking information about health, coming out, or to find community, but can also put teens at risk of cyberbullying or harassment. Some libraries and schools, notably the school district in Camdenton, Missouri, have been ordered to remove internet filtering software that blocked access to LGBTQ friendly websites that teens often turn to for support.

User studies related to LGBTQ library service

Creelman and Harris (1990)

Possibly the first study to provide a comprehensive overview of the information needs of non-heterosexual people, Creelman and Harris' article focused on lesbians' information needs at specific points in their lives. They used a sense-making model which considered lesbians' information needs within a particular context. Their data came from a series of 50 interviews with lesbian women who were part of a lesbian group in Toronto, Canada, and used the snowball sampling approach to recruit additional participants. Eighty-four percent of interviewees said that they were aware of the library as a source of information related to lesbian identities, compared to 62% who were aware of gay bars and 58% aware of gay and lesbian organizations. However, the authors found many respondents were frustrated with the negative or male-centric literature that made up the bulk of information available in libraries; libraries needed to ensure that information was readily available, current and positive to best serve lesbian populations.

Whitt (1993)

Alisa Whitt's 1993 study also focused on the information needs of lesbians and what lesbians expected from the library during different life stages. Whitt collected data by sending out a survey via a lesbian newsletter that circulated in North Carolina, which drew 141 respondents.

For many lesbians who responded to Whitt's survey, the library was the most important source for locating information during the initial stages of coming out, especially in remote areas without a visible community. Whitt determined three shifts in the type of information desired by respondents, from early in the coming out process to a later, more established identity. She found that information needs went from broad to specifically focused, from factual or non-fiction to entertainment or fiction and that respondents became more discerning about the information they needed with age.

Many respondents who never used the library cited embarrassment or lack of knowledge about available information as reasons. Even those that did frequent the library often said that they were too embarrassed to ask for help; many expected shocked reactions or outright homophobia from librarians. Some common complaints about library collections from those who did use them were that information was negative, outdated or difficult to find. Whitt concluded that more staff training was needed to address these perceptions. She also found that those respondents who regularly used a college or university library had a more positive experience finding needed information than those who used only the public library.

Joyce and Schrader (1997)

In the first user study specifically addressed towards gay males, Joyce and Schrader studied perceptions of the library system in Edmonton, Canada. Using an anonymous questionnaire distributed to gay community organizations, the authors collected data on 21 questions related to three aspects of information seeking: personal information, information needs related to coming out and ongoing information needs. The survey had 47 respondents who had a generally high level of education.

The library was the most often cited resource of information related to coming out and for ongoing needs, followed by gay organizations and friends. When asked what types of materials respondents borrowed from the library, they most frequently cited music, followed by nonfiction and fiction. However, respondents had an overall negative impression about the amount of information related to gay males contained in the library, and suggested the need for expanding the gay collection, networking with gay and lesbian organizations and subscribing to gay magazines.

Joyce and Schrader found similarities between their study and the ones by Whitt and Creelman and Harris which came before it. Some of the common themes included the importance of the library, especially in the early stages of coming out, the need for more specific information over time and the general lack of services.

Norman (1999)

Norman's 1999 study provides quantitative analysis of survey responses from 44 self-identified lesbian, gay and bisexual individuals using the Brighton and Hove (UK) public libraries. The survey was aimed at identifying five aspects of the libraries' LGB users, including demographics, the effect of centralizing a collection, whether LGB individuals use bibliographies to find reading as well as reasons for using and perceptions of library service. Results of the survey were analyzed using SPSS.

Results indicated that fiction or other materials for entertainment were the most popular materials from the library, and that more than half used bibliographies to locate new reading materials. Many respondents cited the high prices of gay or lesbian books as one of the reasons for heavy use of the library. Though some respondents felt that the balance of lesbian to gay titles was skewed in favor of lesbian titles, the overall perception of Hove and Brighton's services to LGB patrons was excellent or good.

Rothbauer (2004)

As an offshoot of her dissertation research, Rothbauer interviewed 17 self-identified lesbian, bisexual and queer women between the ages of 18 and 23 about their discretionary reading habits. To analyze the data, she used open-coding techniques for textual analysis, and also relied on some participant writing and journals.

Rothbauer's findings indicate that fiction reading is an aspirational activity for young lesbian, bisexual and queer women; many participants hoped that fiction would show the "possibilities of claiming a queer identity" and were frustrated by works that contained an overly negative or homophobic view of lesbian life. Rothbauer identified four trends in her participants reading choices:

• An orientation towards the future
• A rejection of the standard coming-out narratives
• A desire to read about "being lesbian," "being queer," and "being bisexual"
• A connection with the "textual other"

Interviewees also reported feeling a greater connection to community through reading, whether it was through joining fan communities of favorite authors, or discussing and sharing books with others.

The public library was one of the most important points of access for interviewees, along with the internet and bookstores. Interviewees often relied heavily on online library catalogs as safe, anonymous searches to explore lesbian fiction. Participants often did not find what they were looking for in online catalogs, but were not surprised by the lack of materials. Rothbauer suggests making materials more visible, and also improving the scope and currency of library holdings to reach these users.

Beiriger and Jackson (2007)

In an effort to rectify the lack of research related to the information needs of transgender individuals, Beiriger and Jackson's article surveyed the transgender population in the Transgender/Identity Resource Center (TiRC) in Portland, Oregon. Using a survey tool adapted from the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Wellness Project of Ottawa-Carleton, Canada, the authors distributed the survey through TiRC staff and counselors, as well as online through listserves and websites.

Analysis of the 99 responses to the survey show that the library is one of the last places that transgender people turn for information due to lack of up to date health information, or an unwelcoming environment. Library collections meant to support the needs of transgender individuals were generally less comprehensive than those serving their gay and lesbian counterparts. The authors found that librarians should do more outreach to transgender communities to communicate a message of welcome, and that the internet could be a potentially powerful tool for outreach to these underrepresented populations.

National Park Service (2016)

The United States National Park Service officially unveiled a study of the history of the LGBTQ community on National Coming Out Day, Tuesday, October 11, during the second week of LGBT History Month. The library and preservation communities hope this study "will assist in the protection of various LGBTQ historic sites across the country."

Organizations

Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Round Table (GLBTRT)

Founded in 1970, the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Round Table (GLBTRT), now known as the Rainbow Round Table, is a subdivision of the American Library Association. Its goals are both to support library professionals who identify as LGBTQ as well as promote access to LGBTQ materials for library users. In addition, GLBTRT seeks to create new classification schemes for LGBTQ books that do not stigmatize these identities, and promote access under the ALA's Code of Ethics and Library Bill of Rights. The GLBTRT also administers the yearly Stonewall Book Awards for juvenile, young adult, and adult LGBTQ fiction.

Diverse Sexuality and Gender Section

The Diverse Sexuality and Gender Section is a group within the Society of American Archivists, founded in 1989, which advocates for the preservation of materials related to LGBT history within the archival profession. It was formerly called the Lesbian and Gay Archivists Roundtable, with the name changed to the Diverse Sexuality and Gender Section, known as DSGS for short, at the section's 2017 annual meeting. In August 2020, DSGS held a joint meeting with the Women's Collections Section on Zoom.

In 2017, the section proposed the creation of a Tragedy Response Initiative Task Force to create and compile material for ready accessibility by archivists that are "facing a sudden tragedy" and to explore the feasibility of creating a standing body "within SAA that would update documentation as needed and serve as a volunteer tragedy response team." The section also maintains Lavender Legacies, a directory of LGBTQ collections in North American archival repositories.

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer/Questioning (LGBTQ) Users Special Interest Group (SIG)

The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) LGBTQ Users SIG is charged to address the gap in professional knowledge of LGBTQ users' needs by offering opportunities to engage in discussions about this often invisible user group. This SIG considers topics including professional attitudes, outreach, privacy, programming, and effective practice in acquiring and collecting materials of importance to LGBTQ people and allies and encourages thoughtful consideration of issues of sexuality and gender identity.

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered Health Science Librarians Special Interest Group (SIG)

The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered Health Science Librarians Special Interest Group (SIG) is a unit of the Medical Library Association. Its goals are to identify, collect and disseminate gay/lesbian/bisexual health care information within the Medical Library Association in order to enhance the quality and quantity of information available to colleagues within the association and within members' institutions in order to support the physical and psychological health care concerns of medical library clients.

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered Special Interest Group (LGBT SIG)

Formerly the Gay and Lesbian Interests/Issues Round Table (GLIRT), the LGBT SIG is part of the Art Libraries Society of North America. They focus on the professional and cultural aspects of the LGBTQ Community through discussion and the informal exchange of information in yearly meetings during the ARLIS/NA Conference.

CILIP LGBTQ+ Network

A 2017 LGBTQ+ Pride book display at the Barbara S. Ponce Public Library in Pinellas Park, Florida

Active in the United Kingdom since 2020, the network seeks to "represent all UK LGBTQ+ Library Knowledge & Information workers", membership is open to both CILIP and non-CILIP members.

GLBT Book Month

A 2017 LGBTQ+ Pride book display at the Barbara S. Ponce Public Library in Pinellas Park, Florida

Starting in 2015, the American Library Association marked June to be GLBT Book Month, a nationwide celebration of the authors and writings that reflect the lives and experiences of the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community.

Originally established in the early 1990s by The Publishing Triangle as National Lesbian and Gay Book Month, this occasion is an opportunity for book lovers and libraries with the very best in GLBT literature. GLBT Book Month is an initiative of the American Library Association, and is coordinated through its Office for Diversity, Literacy, and Outreach Services and the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Round Table.

Additional resources

Adult services

• Antell, K.; Strothmann, M.; Downey, J. (2013). "Self-Censorship in Selection of LGBT-Themed Materials". Reference & User Services Quarterly. 53 (2): 104–107. doi:10.5860/rusq.53n2.104.
• Joyce, Steven L (2000). "Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Library Service: A Review of the Literature". Public Libraries. 39 (5): 270–9.
• Kingston, M. Information needs of GLBT College Students. Thesis, Indiana University, 1998.
• Morris, Martin; Roberto, K.R. (2016). "Information-seeking behaviour and information needs of LGBTQ health professionals: a follow-up study". Health Information & Libraries Journal. 33 (3): 204–221. doi:10.1111/hir.12139. PMID 27060995.
• O'Leary, M. "Pink perceptions: The information needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender library users as perceived by public librarians and by the LGBT communities within Sheffield, UK and Denver, CO. USA" Thesis, University of Sheffield: 2005.
• Passet, Joanne E (2012). "Hidden in Plain Sight: Gay and Lesbian Books in Midwestern Public Libraries, 1900--1969". Library Trends. 60 (3): 749–64. doi:10.1353/lib.2012.0010. S2CID 30107318.
• Ritchie, Catherine J. "Collection Development of gay/lesbian/bisexual-Related Adult Non-Fiction in Medium-Sized Illinois Public Libraries." Illinois Libraries 83.2 (2001): 39–70. Library Literature and Information Science. Web. 12 Mar. 2013.
• Rothbauer, Paulette (2004). "The Internet in the Reading Accounts of Lesbian and Queer Young Women: Failed Searches and Unsanctioned Reading". Canadian Journal of Information and Library Science. 28 (4): 89–112.
• Stenback, T.L.; Schrader, A.M. Venturing from the closet: A qualitative study of the information needs of lesbians. Pub. Libr. Quart. 1999; 17 (3), 37–50.

Cataloging

• GLBT Controlled Vocabularies and Classification Schemes

Children and teen services

• Abate, Michelle Ann and Kenneth Kidd, eds., Over the Rainbow: Queer Children's and Young Adult Literature (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2001).
• Austin, J. (2019). Lines of sight and knowledge: Possibilities and actualities of trans and gender non-conforming youth in the library.  In Bharat Mehra (ed.) LGBTQ+ librarianship in the 21st century: Emerging directions of advocacy and community engagement in diverse information environments (Advances in Librarianship, volume 45). Emerald Publishing Limited, 167–196.
• Booth, E., & Narayan, B. (2018). “Don't talk about the gay character’: Barriers to queer young adult fiction and authors in schools and libraries English in Australia, 53(2), 40–48.
• Chapman, E (2013). "No More Controversial than a Gardening Display? Provision of LGBT-Related Fiction to Children and Young People in U.K. Public Libraries". Library Trends. 61 (3): 542–568. doi:10.1353/lib.2013.0010. S2CID 5856431.
• Chuang, L.; Raine, G.; Scott, D.; Tauro, K. (2013). "Out in Society, Invisible on the Shelves: Discussing LIS Literature about LGBTQ Youth". Feliciter. 59 (5): 26–27.
• Gay-Themed Picture Books for Children
• Hillias J. Martin Jr. and James R. Murdock, Serving Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Questioning Teens: A How-to-do-it Manual for Librarians (New York: Neal-Schuman Publishers, 2007).
• Hughes-Hassell, S.; Overberg, E.; Harris, S. (2013). "Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Questioning (LGBTQ)-Themed Literature for Teens: Are School Libraries Providing Adequate Collections?". School Library Research. 16: 1–18.
• Jamie Campbell Naidoo, Rainbow Family Collections: Selecting and Using Children's Books with Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Content (Santa Barbara: Libraries Unlimited, 2012)
• Parks, A (2012). "Opening the Gate". Young Adult Library Services. 10 (4): 22–27.
• QueerYA: Reviews of Fiction of Interest to LGBTQ Teens
• Stringer-Stanback, Kynita (2011). "Young Adult Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Questioning (LGBTQ) Non-Fiction Collections and Countywide Anti-Discrimination Policies". Urban Library Journal. 17 (1): 1–27. doi:10.31641/ulj170104.
• Vincent, John (2014). LGBT+ People and the UK Cultural Sector. (London: Routledge)
• Australian LGBTQ YA

History

• Carmichael, James V. Daring to Find Our Names: The Search for Lesbigay Library History, Praeger, 1998, ISBN 978-0313299636
• Gittings, Barbara. Gays in Library Land: The Gay and Lesbian Task Force of the American Library Association: The First Sixteen Years, 1990

Metadata

In the 21st century, metadata typically refers to digital forms, but traditional card catalogs contain metadata, with cards holding information about books in a library (author, title, subject, etc.).

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metadata 

Metadata can come in different layers: This physical herbarium record of Cenchrus ciliaris consists of the specimens as well as metadata about them, while the barcode points to a digital record with metadata about the physical record.

Metadata (or metainformation) is "data that provides information about other data", but not the content of the data, such as the text of a message or the image itself. There are many distinct types of metadata, including:

• Descriptive metadata – the descriptive information about a resource. It is used for discovery and identification. It includes elements such as title, abstract, author, and keywords.
• Structural metadata – metadata about containers of data and indicates how compound objects are put together, for example, how pages are ordered to form chapters. It describes the types, versions, relationships, and other characteristics of digital materials.
• Administrative metadata – the information to help manage a resource, like resource type, permissions, and when and how it was created.
• Reference metadata – the information about the contents and quality of statistical data.
• Statistical metadata – also called process data, may describe processes that collect, process, or produce statistical data.
• Legal metadata – provides information about the creator, copyright holder, and public licensing, if provided.

Metadata is not strictly bound to one of these categories, as it can describe a piece of data in many other ways.

History

Metadata has various purposes. It can help users find relevant information and discover resources. It can also help organize electronic resources, provide digital identification, and archive and preserve resources. Metadata allows users to access resources by "allowing resources to be found by relevant criteria, identifying resources, bringing similar resources together, distinguishing dissimilar resources, and giving location information". Metadata of telecommunication activities including Internet traffic is very widely collected by various national governmental organizations. This data is used for the purposes of traffic analysis and can be used for mass surveillance.

Metadata was traditionally used in the card catalogs of libraries until the 1980s when libraries converted their catalog data to digital databases. In the 2000s, as data and information were increasingly stored digitally, this digital data was described using metadata standards.

The first description of "meta data" for computer systems is purportedly noted by MIT's Center for International Studies experts David Griffel and Stuart McIntosh in 1967: "In summary then, we have statements in an object language about subject descriptions of data and token codes for the data. We also have statements in a meta language describing the data relationships and transformations, and ought/is relations between norm and data."

Unique metadata standards exist for different disciplines (e.g., museum collections, digital audio files, websites, etc.). Describing the contents and context of data or data files increases its usefulness. For example, a web page may include metadata specifying what software language the page is written in (e.g., HTML), what tools were used to create it, what subjects the page is about, and where to find more information about the subject. This metadata can automatically improve the reader's experience and make it easier for users to find the web page online. A CD may include metadata providing information about the musicians, singers, and songwriters whose work appears on the disc.

In many countries, government organizations routinely store metadata about emails, telephone calls, web pages, video traffic, IP connections, and cell phone locations.

Definition

Metadata means "data about data". Metadata is defined as the data providing information about one or more aspects of the data; it is used to summarize basic information about data that can make tracking and working with specific data easier. Some examples include:

• Means of creation of the data
• Purpose of the data
• Time and date of creation
• Creator or author of the data
• Location on a computer network where the data was created
• Standards used
• File size
• Data quality
• Source of the data
• Process used to create the data

For example, a digital image may include metadata that describes the size of the image, its color depth, resolution, when it was created, the shutter speed, and other data. A text document's metadata may contain information about how long the document is, who the author is, when the document was written, and a short summary of the document. Metadata within web pages can also contain descriptions of page content, as well as key words linked to the content. These links are often called "Metatags", which were used as the primary factor in determining order for a web search until the late 1990s. The reliance on metatags in web searches was decreased in the late 1990s because of "keyword stuffing", whereby metatags were being largely misused to trick search engines into thinking some websites had more relevance in the search than they really did.

Metadata can be stored and managed in a database, often called a metadata registry or metadata repository. However, without context and a point of reference, it might be impossible to identify metadata just by looking at it. For example: by itself, a database containing several numbers, all 13 digits long could be the results of calculations or a list of numbers to plug into an equation  –  without any other context, the numbers themselves can be perceived as the data. But if given the context that this database is a log of a book collection, those 13-digit numbers may now be identified as ISBNs  –  information that refers to the book, but is not itself the information within the book. The term "metadata" was coined in 1968 by Philip Bagley, in his book "Extension of Programming Language Concepts" where it is clear that he uses the term in the ISO 11179 "traditional" sense, which is "structural metadata" i.e. "data about the containers of data"; rather than the alternative sense "content about individual instances of data content" or metacontent, the type of data usually found in library catalogs. Since then the fields of information management, information science, information technology, librarianship, and GIS have widely adopted the term. In these fields, the word metadata is defined as "data about data". While this is the generally accepted definition, various disciplines have adopted their own more specific explanations and uses of the term.

Slate reported in 2013 that the United States government's interpretation of "metadata" could be broad, and might include message content such as the subject lines of emails.

Types

While the metadata application is manifold, covering a large variety of fields, there are specialized and well-accepted models to specify types of metadata. Bretherton & Singley (1994) distinguish between two distinct classes: structural/control metadata and guide metadata. Structural metadata describes the structure of database objects such as tables, columns, keys and indexes. Guide metadata helps humans find specific items and is usually expressed as a set of keywords in a natural language. According to Ralph Kimball, metadata can be divided into three categories: technical metadata (or internal metadata), business metadata (or external metadata), and process metadata.

NISO distinguishes three types of metadata: descriptive, structural, and administrative. Descriptive metadata is typically used for discovery and identification, as information to search and locate an object, such as title, authors, subjects, keywords, and publisher. Structural metadata describes how the components of an object are organized. An example of structural metadata would be how pages are ordered to form chapters of a book. Finally, administrative metadata gives information to help manage the source. Administrative metadata refers to the technical information, such as file type, or when and how the file was created. Two sub-types of administrative metadata are rights management metadata and preservation metadata. Rights management metadata explains intellectual property rights, while preservation metadata contains information to preserve and save a resource.

Statistical data repositories have their own requirements for metadata in order to describe not only the source and quality of the data but also what statistical processes were used to create the data, which is of particular importance to the statistical community in order to both validate and improve the process of statistical data production.

An additional type of metadata beginning to be more developed is accessibility metadata. Accessibility metadata is not a new concept to libraries; however, advances in universal design have raised its profile. Projects like Cloud4All and GPII identified the lack of common terminologies and models to describe the needs and preferences of users and information that fits those needs as a major gap in providing universal access solutions. Those types of information are accessibility metadata. Schema.org has incorporated several accessibility properties based on IMS Global Access for All Information Model Data Element Specification. The Wiki page WebSchemas/Accessibility lists several properties and their values. While the efforts to describe and standardize the varied accessibility needs of information seekers are beginning to become more robust, their adoption into established metadata schemas has not been as developed. For example, while Dublin Core (DC)'s "audience" and MARC 21's "reading level" could be used to identify resources suitable for users with dyslexia and DC's "format" could be used to identify resources available in braille, audio, or large print formats, there is more work to be done.

Structures

Metadata (metacontent) or, more correctly, the vocabularies used to assemble metadata (metacontent) statements, is typically structured according to a standardized concept using a well-defined metadata scheme, including metadata standards and metadata models. Tools such as controlled vocabularies, taxonomies, thesauri, data dictionaries, and metadata registries can be used to apply further standardization to the metadata. Structural metadata commonality is also of paramount importance in data model development and in database design.

Syntax

Metadata (metacontent) syntax refers to the rules created to structure the fields or elements of metadata (metacontent). A single metadata scheme may be expressed in a number of different markup or programming languages, each of which requires a different syntax. For example, Dublin Core may be expressed in plain text, HTML, XML, and RDF.

A common example of (guide) metacontent is the bibliographic classification, the subject, the Dewey Decimal class number. There is always an implied statement in any "classification" of some object. To classify an object as, for example, Dewey class number 514 (Topology) (i.e. books having the number 514 on their spine) the implied statement is: "<book><subject heading><514>". This is a subject-predicate-object triple, or more importantly, a class-attribute-value triple. The first 2 elements of the triple (class, attribute) are pieces of some structural metadata having a defined semantic. The third element is a value, preferably from some controlled vocabulary, some reference (master) data. The combination of the metadata and master data elements results in a statement which is a metacontent statement i.e. "metacontent = metadata + master data". All of these elements can be thought of as "vocabulary". Both metadata and master data are vocabularies that can be assembled into metacontent statements. There are many sources of these vocabularies, both meta and master data: UML, EDIFACT, XSD, Dewey/UDC/LoC, SKOS, ISO-25964, Pantone, Linnaean Binomial Nomenclature, etc. Using controlled vocabularies for the components of metacontent statements, whether for indexing or finding, is endorsed by ISO 25964: "If both the indexer and the searcher are guided to choose the same term for the same concept, then relevant documents will be retrieved." This is particularly relevant when considering search engines of the internet, such as Google. The process indexes pages and then matches text strings using its complex algorithm; there is no intelligence or "inferencing" occurring, just the illusion thereof.

Hierarchical, linear, and planar schemata

Metadata schemata can be hierarchical in nature where relationships exist between metadata elements and elements are nested so that parent-child relationships exist between the elements. An example of a hierarchical metadata schema is the IEEE LOM schema, in which metadata elements may belong to a parent metadata element. Metadata schemata can also be one-dimensional, or linear, where each element is completely discrete from other elements and classified according to one dimension only. An example of a linear metadata schema is the Dublin Core schema, which is one-dimensional. Metadata schemata are often 2 dimensional, or planar, where each element is completely discrete from other elements but classified according to 2 orthogonal dimensions.

Granularity

The degree to which the data or metadata is structured is referred to as "granularity". "Granularity" refers to how much detail is provided. Metadata with a high granularity allows for deeper, more detailed, and more structured information and enables a greater level of technical manipulation. A lower level of granularity means that metadata can be created for considerably lower costs but will not provide as detailed information. The major impact of granularity is not only on creation and capture, but moreover on maintenance costs. As soon as the metadata structures become outdated, so too is the access to the referred data. Hence granularity must take into account the effort to create the metadata as well as the effort to maintain it.

Hypermapping

In all cases where the metadata schemata exceed the planar depiction, some type of hypermapping is required to enable display and view of metadata according to chosen aspect and to serve special views. Hypermapping frequently applies to layering of geographical and geological information overlays.

Standards

International standards apply to metadata. Much work is being accomplished in the national and international standards communities, especially ANSI (American National Standards Institute) and ISO (International Organization for Standardization) to reach a consensus on standardizing metadata and registries. The core metadata registry standard is ISO/IEC 11179 Metadata Registries (MDR), the framework for the standard is described in ISO/IEC 11179-1:2004. A new edition of Part 1 is in its final stage for publication in 2015 or early 2016. It has been revised to align with the current edition of Part 3, ISO/IEC 11179-3:2013 which extends the MDR to support the registration of Concept Systems. (see ISO/IEC 11179). This standard specifies a schema for recording both the meaning and technical structure of the data for unambiguous usage by humans and computers. ISO/IEC 11179 standard refers to metadata as information objects about data, or "data about data". In ISO/IEC 11179 Part-3, the information objects are data about Data Elements, Value Domains, and other reusable semantic and representational information objects that describe the meaning and technical details of a data item. This standard also prescribes the details for a metadata registry, and for registering and administering the information objects within a Metadata Registry. ISO/IEC 11179 Part 3 also has provisions for describing compound structures that are derivations of other data elements, for example through calculations, collections of one or more data elements, or other forms of derived data. While this standard describes itself originally as a "data element" registry, its purpose is to support describing and registering metadata content independently of any particular application, lending the descriptions to being discovered and reused by humans or computers in developing new applications, databases, or for analysis of data collected in accordance with the registered metadata content. This standard has become the general basis for other kinds of metadata registries, reusing and extending the registration and administration portion of the standard.

The Geospatial community has a tradition of specialized geospatial metadata standards, particularly building on traditions of map- and image-libraries and catalogs. Formal metadata is usually essential for geospatial data, as common text-processing approaches are not applicable.

The Dublin Core metadata terms are a set of vocabulary terms that can be used to describe resources for the purposes of discovery. The original set of 15 classic metadata terms, known as the Dublin Core Metadata Element Set are endorsed in the following standards documents:

• IETF RFC 5013
• ISO Standard 15836-2009
• NISO Standard Z39.85.

The W3C Data Catalog Vocabulary (DCAT) is an RDF vocabulary that supplements Dublin Core with classes for Dataset, Data Service, Catalog, and Catalog Record. DCAT also uses elements from FOAF, PROV-O, and OWL-Time. DCAT provides an RDF model to support the typical structure of a catalog that contains records, each describing a dataset or service.

Although not a standard, Microformat (also mentioned in the section metadata on the internet below) is a web-based approach to semantic markup which seeks to re-use existing HTML/XHTML tags to convey metadata. Microformat follows XHTML and HTML standards but is not a standard in itself. One advocate of microformats, Tantek Çelik, characterized a problem with alternative approaches:

Here's a new language we want you to learn, and now you need to output these additional files on your server. It's a hassle. (Microformats) lower the barrier to entry.

Use

Photographs

Metadata may be written into a digital photo file that will identify who owns it, copyright and contact information, what brand or model of camera created the file, along with exposure information (shutter speed, f-stop, etc.) and descriptive information, such as keywords about the photo, making the file or image searchable on a computer and/or the Internet. Some metadata is created by the camera such as, color space, color channels, exposure time, and aperture (EXIF), while some is input by the photographer and/or software after downloading to a computer. Most digital cameras write metadata about the model number, shutter speed, etc., and some enable you to edit it; this functionality has been available on most Nikon DSLRs since the Nikon D3, on most new Canon cameras since the Canon EOS 7D, and on most Pentax DSLRs since the Pentax K-3. Metadata can be used to make organizing in post-production easier with the use of key-wording. Filters can be used to analyze a specific set of photographs and create selections on criteria like rating or capture time. On devices with geolocation capabilities like GPS (smartphones in particular), the location the photo was taken from may also be included.

Photographic Metadata Standards are governed by organizations that develop the following standards. They include, but are not limited to:

• IPTC Information Interchange Model IIM (International Press Telecommunications Council)
• IPTC Core Schema for XMP
• XMP – Extensible Metadata Platform (an ISO standard)
• Exif – Exchangeable image file format, Maintained by CIPA (Camera & Imaging Products Association) and published by JEITA (Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industries Association)
• Dublin Core (Dublin Core Metadata Initiative – DCMI)
• PLUS (Picture Licensing Universal System)
• VRA Core (Visual Resource Association)

Telecommunications

Information on the times, origins and destinations of phone calls, electronic messages, instant messages, and other modes of telecommunication, as opposed to message content, is another form of metadata. Bulk collection of this call detail record metadata by intelligence agencies has proven controversial after disclosures by Edward Snowden of the fact that certain Intelligence agencies such as the NSA had been (and perhaps still are) keeping online metadata on millions of internet users for up to a year, regardless of whether or not they [ever] were persons of interest to the agency.

Video

Metadata is particularly useful in video, where information about its contents (such as transcripts of conversations and text descriptions of its scenes) is not directly understandable by a computer, but where an efficient search of the content is desirable. This is particularly useful in video applications such as Automatic Number Plate Recognition and Vehicle Recognition Identification software, wherein license plate data is saved and used to create reports and alerts. There are 2 sources in which video metadata is derived: (1) operational gathered metadata, that is information about the content produced, such as the type of equipment, software, date, and location; (2) human-authored metadata, to improve search engine visibility, discoverability, audience engagement, and providing advertising opportunities to video publishers. Today most professional video editing software has access to metadata. Avid's MetaSync and Adobe's Bridge are 2 prime examples of this.

Geospatial metadata

Main article: Geospatial metadata

Geospatial metadata relates to Geographic Information Systems (GIS) files, maps, images, and other data that is location-based. Metadata is used in GIS to document the characteristics and attributes of geographic data, such as database files and data that is developed within a GIS. It includes details like who developed the data, when it was collected, how it was processed, and what formats it's available in, and then delivers the context for the data to be used effectively.

Creation

Metadata can be created either by automated information processing or by manual work. Elementary metadata captured by computers can include information about when an object was created, who created it, when it was last updated, file size, and file extension. In this context an object refers to any of the following:

• A physical item such as a book, CD, DVD, a paper map, chair, table, flower pot, etc.
• An electronic file such as a digital image, digital photo, electronic document, program file, database table, etc.

A metadata engine collects, stores and analyzes information about data and metadata (data about data) in use within a domain.

Data virtualization

Main article: Data virtualization

Data virtualization emerged in the 2000s as the new software technology to complete the virtualization "stack" in the enterprise. Metadata is used in data virtualization servers which are enterprise infrastructure components, alongside database and application servers. Metadata in these servers is saved as persistent repository and describe business objects in various enterprise systems and applications. Structural metadata commonality is also important to support data virtualization.

Statistics and census services

Standardization and harmonization work has brought advantages to industry efforts to build metadata systems in the statistical community. Several metadata guidelines and standards such as the European Statistics Code of Practice and ISO 17369:2013 (Statistical Data and Metadata Exchange or SDMX) provide key principles for how businesses, government bodies, and other entities should manage statistical data and metadata. Entities such as Eurostat, European System of Central Banks, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have implemented these and other such standards and guidelines with the goal of improving "efficiency when managing statistical business processes".

Library and information science

Metadata has been used in various ways as a means of cataloging items in libraries in both digital and analog formats. Such data helps classify, aggregate, identify, and locate a particular book, DVD, magazine, or any object a library might hold in its collection. Until the 1980s, many library catalogs used 3x5 inch cards in file drawers to display a book's title, author, subject matter, and an abbreviated alpha-numeric string (call number) which indicated the physical location of the book within the library's shelves. The Dewey Decimal System employed by libraries for the classification of library materials by subject is an early example of metadata usage. The early paper catalog had information regarding whichever item was described on said card: title, author, subject, and a number as to where to find said item. Beginning in the 1980s and 1990s, many libraries replaced these paper file cards with computer databases. These computer databases make it much easier and faster for users to do keyword searches. Another form of older metadata collection is the use by the US Census Bureau of what is known as the "Long Form". The Long Form asks questions that are used to create demographic data to find patterns of distribution. Libraries employ metadata in library catalogues, most commonly as part of an Integrated Library Management System. Metadata is obtained by cataloging resources such as books, periodicals, DVDs, web pages or digital images. This data is stored in the integrated library management system, ILMS, using the MARC metadata standard. The purpose is to direct patrons to the physical or electronic location of items or areas they seek as well as to provide a description of the item/s in question.

More recent and specialized instances of library metadata include the establishment of digital libraries including e-print repositories and digital image libraries. While often based on library principles, the focus on non-librarian use, especially in providing metadata, means they do not follow traditional or common cataloging approaches. Given the custom nature of included materials, metadata fields are often specially created e.g. taxonomic classification fields, location fields, keywords, or copyright statement. Standard file information such as file size and format are usually automatically included. Library operation has for decades been a key topic in efforts toward international standardization. Standards for metadata in digital libraries include Dublin Core, METS, MODS, DDI, DOI, URN, PREMIS schema, EML, and OAI-PMH. Leading libraries in the world give hints on their metadata standards strategies. The use and creation of metadata in library and information science also include scientific publications:

Science

Further information: Metascience

Metadata for scientific publications is often created by journal publishers and citation databases such as PubMed and Web of Science. The data contained within manuscripts or accompanying them as supplementary material is less often subject to metadata creation, though they may be submitted to e.g. biomedical databases after publication. The original authors and database curators then become responsible for metadata creation, with the assistance of automated processes. Comprehensive metadata for all experimental data is the foundation of the FAIR Guiding Principles, or the standards for ensuring research data are findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable.

Such metadata can then be utilized, complemented, and made accessible in useful ways. OpenAlex is a free online index of over 200 million scientific documents that integrates and provides metadata such as sources, citations, author information, scientific fields, and research topics. Its API and open source website can be used for metascience, scientometrics, and novel tools that query this semantic web of papers. Another project under development, Scholia, uses the metadata of scientific publications for various visualizations and aggregation features such as providing a simple user interface summarizing literature about a specific feature of the SARS-CoV-2 virus using Wikidata's "main subject" property.

In research labor, transparent metadata about authors' contributions to works have been proposed – e.g. the role played in the production of the paper, the level of contribution and the responsibilities.

Moreover, various metadata about scientific outputs can be created or complemented – for instance, scite.ai attempts to track and link citations of papers as 'Supporting', 'Mentioning' or 'Contrasting' the study. Other examples include developments of alternative metrics – which, beyond providing help for assessment and findability, also aggregate many of the public discussions about a scientific paper on social media such as Reddit, citations on Wikipedia, and reports about the study in the news media – and a call for showing whether or not the original findings are confirmed or could get reproduced.

Museums

Metadata in a museum context is the information that trained cultural documentation specialists, such as archivists, librarians, museum registrars and curators, create to index, structure, describe, identify, or otherwise specify works of art, architecture, cultural objects and their images. Descriptive metadata is most commonly used in museum contexts for object identification and resource recovery purposes.

Usage

Metadata is developed and applied within collecting institutions and museums in order to:

• Facilitate resource discovery and execute search queries.
• Create digital archives that store information relating to various aspects of museum collections and cultural objects, and serve archival and managerial purposes.
• Provide public audiences access to cultural objects through publishing digital content online.

Standards

Many museums and cultural heritage centers recognize that given the diversity of artworks and cultural objects, no single model or standard suffices to describe and catalog cultural works. For example, a sculpted Indigenous artifact could be classified as an artwork, an archaeological artifact, or an Indigenous heritage item. The early stages of standardization in archiving, description and cataloging within the museum community began in the late 1990s with the development of standards such as Categories for the Description of Works of Art (CDWA), Spectrum, CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model (CRM), Cataloging Cultural Objects (CCO) and the CDWA Lite XML schema. These standards use HTML and XML markup languages for machine processing, publication and implementation. The Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules (AACR), originally developed for characterizing books, have also been applied to cultural objects, works of art and architecture. Standards, such as the CCO, are integrated within a Museum's Collections Management System (CMS), a database through which museums are able to manage their collections, acquisitions, loans and conservation. Scholars and professionals in the field note that the "quickly evolving landscape of standards and technologies" creates challenges for cultural documentarians, specifically non-technically trained professionals. Most collecting institutions and museums use a relational database to categorize cultural works and their images. Relational databases and metadata work to document and describe the complex relationships amongst cultural objects and multi-faceted works of art, as well as between objects and places, people, and artistic movements. Relational database structures are also beneficial within collecting institutions and museums because they allow for archivists to make a clear distinction between cultural objects and their images; an unclear distinction could lead to confusing and inaccurate searches.

Cultural objects

An object's materiality, function, and purpose, as well as the size (e.g., measurements, such as height, width, weight), storage requirements (e.g., climate-controlled environment), and focus of the museum and collection, influence the descriptive depth of the data attributed to the object by cultural documentarians. The established institutional cataloging practices, goals, and expertise of cultural documentarians and database structure also influence the information ascribed to cultural objects and the ways in which cultural objects are categorized. Additionally, museums often employ standardized commercial collection management software that prescribes and limits the ways in which archivists can describe artworks and cultural objects. As well, collecting institutions and museums use Controlled Vocabularies to describe cultural objects and artworks in their collections. Getty Vocabularies and the Library of Congress Controlled Vocabularies are reputable within the museum community and are recommended by CCO standards. Museums are encouraged to use controlled vocabularies that are contextual and relevant to their collections and enhance the functionality of their digital information systems. Controlled Vocabularies are beneficial within databases because they provide a high level of consistency, improving resource retrieval. Metadata structures, including controlled vocabularies, reflect the ontologies of the systems from which they were created. Often the processes through which cultural objects are described and categorized through metadata in museums do not reflect the perspectives of the maker communities.

Online content

Metadata has been instrumental in the creation of digital information systems and archives within museums and has made it easier for museums to publish digital content online. This has enabled audiences who might not have had access to cultural objects due to geographic or economic barriers to have access to them. In the 2000s, as more museums have adopted archival standards and created intricate databases, discussions about Linked Data between museum databases have come up in the museum, archival, and library science communities. Collection Management Systems (CMS) and Digital Asset Management tools can be local or shared systems. Digital Humanities scholars note many benefits of interoperability between museum databases and collections, while also acknowledging the difficulties of achieving such interoperability.

Law

United States

Problems involving metadata in litigation in the United States are becoming widespread. Courts have looked at various questions involving metadata, including the discoverability of metadata by parties. The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure have specific rules for discovery of electronically stored information, and subsequent case law applying those rules has elucidated on the litigant's duty to produce metadata when litigating in federal court. In October 2009, the Arizona Supreme Court has ruled that metadata records are public record. Document metadata have proven particularly important in legal environments in which litigation has requested metadata, that can include sensitive information detrimental to a certain party in court. Using metadata removal tools to "clean" or redact documents can mitigate the risks of unwittingly sending sensitive data. This process partially (see data remanence) protects law firms from potentially damaging leaking of sensitive data through electronic discovery.

Opinion polls have shown that 45% of Americans are "not at all confident" in the ability of social media sites to ensure their personal data is secure and 40% say that social media sites should not be able to store any information on individuals. 76% of Americans say that they are not confident that the information advertising agencies collect on them is secure and 50% say that online advertising agencies should not be allowed to record any of their information at all.

Australia

In Australia, the need to strengthen national security has resulted in the introduction of a new metadata storage law. This new law means that both security and policing agencies will be allowed to access up to 2 years of an individual's metadata, with the aim of making it easier to stop any terrorist attacks and serious crimes from happening.

Legislation

Legislative metadata has been the subject of some discussion in law.gov forums such as workshops held by the Legal Information Institute at the Cornell Law School on 22 and 23 March 2010. The documentation for these forums is titled, "Suggested metadata practices for legislation and regulations".

A handful of key points have been outlined by these discussions, section headings of which are listed as follows:

• General Considerations
• Document Structure
• Document Contents
• Metadata (elements of)
• Layering
• Point-in-time versus post-hoc

Healthcare

Australian medical research pioneered the definition of metadata for applications in health care. That approach offers the first recognized attempt to adhere to international standards in medical sciences instead of defining a proprietary standard under the World Health Organization (WHO) umbrella. The medical community yet did not approve of the need to follow metadata standards despite research that supported these standards.

Biomedical researches

Research studies in the fields of biomedicine and molecular biology frequently yield large quantities of data, including results of genome or meta-genome sequencing, proteomics data, and even notes or plans created during the course of research itself. Each data type involves its own variety of metadata and the processes necessary to produce these metadata. General metadata standards, such as ISA-Tab, allow researchers to create and exchange experimental metadata in consistent formats. Specific experimental approaches frequently have their own metadata standards and systems: metadata standards for mass spectrometry include mzML and SPLASH, while XML-based standards such as PDBML and SRA XML serve as standards for macromolecular structure and sequencing data, respectively.

The products of biomedical research are generally realized as peer-reviewed manuscripts and these publications are yet another source of data (see #In science).

Data warehousing

A data warehouse (DW) is a repository of an organization's electronically stored data. Data warehouses are designed to manage and store the data. Data warehouses differ from business intelligence (BI) systems because BI systems are designed to use data to create reports and analyze the information, to provide strategic guidance to management. Metadata is an important tool in how data is stored in data warehouses. The purpose of a data warehouse is to house standardized, structured, consistent, integrated, correct, "cleaned" and timely data, extracted from various operational systems in an organization. The extracted data are integrated in the data warehouse environment to provide an enterprise-wide perspective. Data are structured in a way to serve the reporting and analytic requirements. The design of structural metadata commonality using a data modeling method such as entity-relationship model diagramming is important in any data warehouse development effort. They detail metadata on each piece of data in the data warehouse. An essential component of a data warehouse/business intelligence system is the metadata and tools to manage and retrieve the metadata. Ralph Kimball describes metadata as the DNA of the data warehouse as metadata defines the elements of the data warehouse and how they work together.

Kimball et al. refers to 3 main categories of metadata: Technical metadata, business metadata and process metadata. Technical metadata is primarily definitional, while business metadata and process metadata is primarily descriptive. The categories sometimes overlap.

• Technical metadata defines the objects and processes in a DW/BI system, as seen from a technical point of view. The technical metadata includes the system metadata, which defines the data structures such as tables, fields, data types, indexes, and partitions in the relational engine, as well as databases, dimensions, measures, and data mining models. Technical metadata defines the data model and the way it is displayed for the users, with the reports, schedules, distribution lists, and user security rights.
• Business metadata is content from the data warehouse described in more user-friendly terms. The business metadata tells you what data you have, where they come from, what they mean and what their relationship is to other data in the data warehouse. Business metadata may also serve as documentation for the DW/BI system. Users who browse the data warehouse are primarily viewing the business metadata.
• Process metadata is used to describe the results of various operations in the data warehouse. Within the ETL process, all key data from tasks is logged on execution. This includes start time, end time, CPU seconds used, disk reads, disk writes, and rows processed. When troubleshooting the ETL or query process, this sort of data becomes valuable. Process metadata is the fact measurement when building and using a DW/BI system. Some organizations make a living out of collecting and selling this sort of data to companies – in that case, the process metadata becomes the business metadata for the fact and dimension tables. Collecting process metadata is in the interest of business people who can use the data to identify the users of their products, which products they are using, and what level of service they are receiving.

Internet

The HTML format used to define web pages allows for the inclusion of a variety of types of metadata, from basic descriptive text, dates and keywords to further advanced metadata schemes such as the Dublin Core, e-GMS, and AGLS standards. Pages and files can also be geotagged with coordinates, categorized or tagged, including collaboratively such as with folksonomies.

When media has identifiers set or when such can be generated, information such as file tags and descriptions can be pulled or scraped from the Internet – for example about movies. Various online databases are aggregated and provide metadata for various data. The collaboratively built Wikidata has identifiers not just for media but also abstract concepts, various objects, and other entities, that can be looked up by humans and machines to retrieve useful information and to link knowledge in other knowledge bases and databases.

Metadata may be included in the page's header or in a separate file. Microformats allow metadata to be added to on-page data in a way that regular web users do not see, but computers, web crawlers and search engines can readily access. Many search engines are cautious about using metadata in their ranking algorithms because of exploitation of metadata and the practice of search engine optimization, SEO, to improve rankings. See the Meta element article for further discussion. This cautious attitude may be justified as people, according to Doctorow, are not executing care and diligence when creating their own metadata and that metadata is part of a competitive environment where the metadata is used to promote the metadata creators own purposes. Studies show that search engines respond to web pages with metadata implementations, and Google has an announcement on its site showing the meta tags that its search engine understands. Enterprise search startup Swiftype recognizes metadata as a relevance signal that webmasters can implement for their website-specific search engine, even releasing their own extension, known as Meta Tags 2.

Broadcast industry

In the broadcast industry, metadata is linked to audio and video broadcast media to:

• identify the media: clip or playlist names, duration, timecode, etc.
• describe the content: notes regarding the quality of video content, rating, description (for example, during a sport event, keywords like goal, red card will be associated to some clips)
• classify media: metadata allows producers to sort the media or to easily and quickly find a video content (a TV news could urgently need some archive content for a subject). For example, the BBC has a large subject classification system, Lonclass, a customized version of the more general-purpose Universal Decimal Classification.

This metadata can be linked to the video media thanks to the video servers. Most major broadcast sporting events like FIFA World Cup or the Olympic Games use this metadata to distribute their video content to TV stations through keywords. It is often the host broadcaster who is in charge of organizing metadata through its International Broadcast Centre and its video servers. This metadata is recorded with the images and entered by metadata operators (loggers) who associate in live metadata available in metadata grids through software (such as Multicam(LSM) or IPDirector used during the FIFA World Cup or Olympic Games).

Geography

Metadata that describes geographic objects in electronic storage or format (such as datasets, maps, features, or documents with a geospatial component) has a history dating back to at least 1994. This class of metadata is described more fully on the geospatial metadata article.

Ecology and environment

See also: Standardization § Environmental protection

Ecological and environmental metadata is intended to document the "who, what, when, where, why, and how" of data collection for a particular study. This typically means which organization or institution collected the data, what type of data, which date(s) the data was collected, the rationale for the data collection, and the methodology used for the data collection. Metadata should be generated in a format commonly used by the most relevant science community, such as Darwin Core, Ecological Metadata Language, or Dublin Core. Metadata editing tools exist to facilitate metadata generation (e.g. Metavist, Mercury, Morpho). Metadata should describe the provenance of the data (where they originated, as well as any transformations the data underwent) and how to give credit for (cite) the data products.

Digital music

See also: § On the Internet

When first released in 1982, Compact Discs only contained a Table Of Contents (TOC) with the number of tracks on the disc and their length in samples. Fourteen years later in 1996, a revision of the CD Red Book standard added CD-Text to carry additional metadata. But CD-Text was not widely adopted. Shortly thereafter, it became common for personal computers to retrieve metadata from external sources (e.g. CDDB, Gracenote) based on the TOC.

Digital audio formats such as digital audio files superseded music formats such as cassette tapes and CDs in the 2000s. Digital audio files could be labeled with more information than could be contained in just the file name. That descriptive information is called the audio tag or audio metadata in general. Computer programs specializing in adding or modifying this information are called tag editors. Metadata can be used to name, describe, catalog, and indicate ownership or copyright for a digital audio file, and its presence makes it much easier to locate a specific audio file within a group, typically through use of a search engine that accesses the metadata. As different digital audio formats were developed, attempts were made to standardize a specific location within the digital files where this information could be stored.

As a result, almost all digital audio formats, including mp3, broadcast wav, and AIFF files, have similar standardized locations that can be populated with metadata. The metadata for compressed and uncompressed digital music is often encoded in the ID3 tag. Common editors such as TagLib support MP3, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, MPC, Speex, WavPack TrueAudio, WAV, AIFF, MP4, and ASF file formats.

Cloud applications

With the availability of cloud applications, which include those to add metadata to content, metadata is increasingly available over the Internet.

Administration and management

Storage

Metadata can be stored either internally, in the same file or structure as the data (this is also called embedded metadata), or externally, in a separate file or field from the described data. A data repository typically stores the metadata detached from the data but can be designed to support embedded metadata approaches. Each option has advantages and disadvantages:

• Internal storage means metadata always travels as part of the data they describe; thus, metadata is always available with the data, and can be manipulated locally. This method creates redundancy (precluding normalization), and does not allow managing all of a system's metadata in one place. It arguably increases consistency, since the metadata is readily changed whenever the data is changed.
• External storage allows collocating metadata for all the contents, for example in a database, for more efficient searching and management. Redundancy can be avoided by normalizing the metadata's organization. In this approach, metadata can be united with the content when information is transferred, for example in Streaming media; or can be referenced (for example, as a web link) from the transferred content. On the downside, the division of the metadata from the data content, especially in standalone files that refer to their source metadata elsewhere, increases the opportunities for misalignments between the two, as changes to either may not be reflected in the other.

Metadata can be stored in either human-readable or binary form. Storing metadata in a human-readable format such as XML can be useful because users can understand and edit it without specialized tools. However, text-based formats are rarely optimized for storage capacity, communication time, or processing speed. A binary metadata format enables efficiency in all these respects, but requires special software to convert the binary information into human-readable content.

Database management

Each relational database system has its own mechanisms for storing metadata. Examples of relational-database metadata include:

• Tables of all tables in a database, their names, sizes, and number of rows in each table.
• Tables of columns in each database, what tables they are used in, and the type of data stored in each column.

In database terminology, this set of metadata is referred to as the catalog. The SQL standard specifies a uniform means to access the catalog, called the information schema, but not all databases implement it, even if they implement other aspects of the SQL standard. For an example of database-specific metadata access methods, see Oracle metadata. Programmatic access to metadata is possible using APIs such as JDBC, or SchemaCrawler.

Popular culture

One of the first satirical examinations of the concept of Metadata as we understand it today is American science fiction author Hal Draper's short story, "MS Fnd in a Lbry" (1961). Here, the knowledge of all Mankind is condensed into an object the size of a desk drawer, however, the magnitude of the metadata (e.g. catalog of catalogs of... , as well as indexes and histories) eventually leads to dire yet humorous consequences for the human race. The story prefigures the modern consequences of allowing metadata to become more important than the real data it is concerned with, and the risks inherent in that eventuality as a cautionary tale.

Information history

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_history

Fragment of an inscripted clay cone of Urukagina

Information history may refer to the history of each of the categories listed below (or to combinations of them). It should be recognized that the understanding of, for example, libraries as information systems only goes back to about 1950. The application of the term information for earlier systems or societies is a retronym.

The word and concept "information"

The Latin roots and Greek origins of the word "information" is presented by Capurro & Hjørland (2003). References on "formation or molding of the mind or character, training, instruction, teaching" date from the 14th century in both English (according to Oxford English Dictionary) and other European languages. In the transition from Middle Ages to Modernity the use of the concept of information reflected a fundamental turn in epistemological basis – from "giving a (substantial) form to matter" to "communicating something to someone". Peters (1988, pp. 12–13) concludes:

Information was readily deployed in empiricist psychology (though it played a less important role than other words such as impression or idea) because it seemed to describe the mechanics of sensation: objects in the world inform the senses. But sensation is entirely different from "form" – the one is sensual, the other intellectual; the one is subjective, the other objective. My sensation of things is fleeting, elusive, and idiosyncratic [sic]. For Hume, especially, sensory experience is a swirl of impressions cut off from any sure link to the real world... In any case, the empiricist problematic was how the mind is informed by sensations of the world. At first informed meant shaped by; later it came to mean received reports from. As its site of action drifted from cosmos to consciousness, the term's sense shifted from unities (Aristotle's forms) to units (of sensation). Information came less and less to refer to internal ordering or formation, since empiricism allowed for no preexisting intellectual forms outside of sensation itself. Instead, information came to refer to the fragmentary, fluctuating, haphazard stuff of sense. Information, like the early modern worldview in general, shifted from a divinely ordered cosmos to a system governed by the motion of corpuscles. Under the tutelage of empiricism, information gradually moved from structure to stuff, from form to substance, from intellectual order to sensory impulses.

In the modern era, the most important influence on the concept of information is derived from the Information theory developed by Claude Shannon and others. This theory, however, reflects a fundamental contradiction. Northrup (1993) wrote:

Thus, actually two conflicting metaphors are being used: The well-known metaphor of information as a quantity, like water in the water-pipe, is at work, but so is a second metaphor, that of information as a choice, a choice made by :an information provider, and a forced choice made by an :information receiver. Actually, the second metaphor implies that the information sent isn’t necessarily equal to the information received, because any choice implies a comparison with a list of possibilities, i.e., a list of possible meanings. Here, meaning is involved, thus spoiling the idea of information as a pure "Ding an sich." Thus, much of the confusion regarding the concept of information seems to be related to the basic confusion of metaphors in Shannon’s theory: is information an autonomous quantity, or is information always per SE information to an observer? Actually, I don’t think that Shannon himself chose one of the two definitions. Logically speaking, his theory implied information as a subjective phenomenon. But this had so wide-ranging epistemological impacts that Shannon didn’t seem to fully realize this logical fact. Consequently, he continued to use metaphors about information as if it were an objective substance. This is the basic, inherent contradiction in Shannon’s information theory." (Northrup, 1993, p. 5)

In their seminal book The Study of Information: Interdisciplinary Messages, Almach and Mansfield (1983) collected key views on the interdisciplinary controversy in computer science, artificial intelligence, library and information science, linguistics, psychology, and physics, as well as in the social sciences. Almach (1983, p. 660) himself disagrees with the use of the concept of information in the context of signal transmission, the basic senses of information in his view all referring "to telling something or to the something that is being told. Information is addressed to human minds and is received by human minds." All other senses, including its use with regard to nonhuman organisms as well to society as a whole, are, according to Machlup, metaphoric and, as in the case of cybernetics, anthropomorphic.

Hjørland (2007)  describes the fundamental difference between objective and subjective views of information and argues that the subjective view has been supported by, among others, Bate son, Yovits, Span-Hansen, Brier, Buck land, Goguen, and Hjørland. Hjørland provided the following example:

A stone on a field could contain different information for different people (or from one situation to another). It is not possible for information systems to map all the stone’s possible information for every individual. Nor is any one mapping the one "true" mapping. But people have different educational backgrounds and play different roles in the division of labor in society. A stone in a field represents typical one kind of information for the geologist, another for the archaeologist. The information from the stone can be mapped into different collective knowledge structures produced by e.g. geology and archaeology. Information can be identified, described, represented in information systems for different domains of knowledge. Of course, there are much uncertainty and many and difficult problems in determining whether a thing is informative or not for a domain. Some domains have high degree of consensus and rather explicit criteria of relevance. Other domains have different, conflicting paradigms, each containing its own more or less implicate view of the informativeness of different kinds of information sources. (Hjørland, 1997, p. 111, emphasis in original).

Academic discipline

Information history is an emerging discipline related to, but broader than, library history. An important introduction and review was made by Alistair Black (2006). A prolific scholar in this field is also Toni Weller, for example, Weller (2007, 2008, 2010a and 2010b). As part of her work Toni Weller has argued that there are important links between the modern information age and its historical precedents. A description from Russia is Volodin (2000).

Alistair Black (2006, p. 445) wrote: "This chapter explores issues of discipline definition and legitimacy by segmenting information history into its various components:

• The history of print and written culture, including relatively long-established areas such as the histories of libraries and librarianship, book history, publishing history, and the history of reading.
• The history of more recent information disciplines and practice, that is to say, the history of information management, information systems, and information science.
• The history of contiguous areas, such as the history of the information society and information infrastructure, necessarily enveloping communication history (including telecommunications history) and the history of information policy.
• The history of information as social history, with emphasis on the importance of informal information networks."

"Bodies influential in the field include the American Library Association’s Round Table on Library History, the Library History Section of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), and, in the U.K., the Library and Information History Group of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP). Each of these bodies has been busy in recent years, running conferences and seminars, and initiating scholarly projects. Active library history groups function in many other countries, including Germany (The Wolfenbuttel Round Table on Library History, the History of the Book and the History of Media, located at the Herzog August Bibliothek), Denmark (The Danish Society for Library History, located at the Royal School of Library and Information Science), Finland (The Library History Research Group, University of Tamepere), and Norway (The Norwegian Society for Book and Library History). Sweden has no official group dedicated to the subject, but interest is generated by the existence of a museum of librarianship in Bods, established by the Library Museum Society and directed by Magnus Torstensson. Activity in Argentina, where, as in Europe and the U.S., a "new library history" has developed, is described by Parada (2004)." (Black (2006, p. 447).

Journals

• Information & Culture (previously Libraries & the Cultural Record, Libraries & Culture)
• Library & Information History (until 2008: Library History; until 1967: Library Association. Library History Group. Newsletter)

Information technology (IT)

The term IT is ambiguous although mostly synonym with computer technology. Haigh (2011, pp. 432-433) wrote

"In fact, the great majority of references to information technology have always been concerned with computers, although the exact meaning has shifted over time (Kline, 2006). The phrase received its first prominent usage in a Harvard Business Review article (Haigh, 2001b; Leavitt & Whisler, 1958) intended to promote a technocratic vision for the future of business management. Its initial definition was at the conjunction of computers, operations research methods, and simulation techniques. Having failed initially to gain much traction (unlike related terms of a similar vintage such as information systems, information processing, and information science) it was revived in policy and economic circles in the 1970s with a new meaning. Information technology now described the expected convergence of the computing, media, and telecommunications industries (and their technologies), understood within the broader context of a wave of enthusiasm for the computer revolution, post-industrial society, information society (Webster, 1995), and other fashionable expressions of the belief that new electronic technologies were bringing a profound rupture with the past. As it spread broadly during the 1980s, IT increasingly lost its association with communications (and, alas, any vestigial connection to the idea of anybody actually being informed of anything) to become a new and more pretentious way of saying "computer". The final step in this process is the recent surge in references to "information and communication technologies" or ICTs, a coinage that makes sense only if one assumes that a technology can inform without communicating".

Some people use the term information technology about technologies used before the development of the computer. This is however to use the term as a retronym.