The Man who Invented Metadata
Posted on:: October 28th, 2003
I just gave a talk at the first Ascential user conference. I was talking mainly about how metadata is rooted in human desire. Afterwards, Bernard Plagman approached me and struck up a conversation. He apparently is the person who coined the term “metadata” in an article in 1971. Back when he wrote Data Dictionary/Directory Systems (Wiley, 1974), it was necessary to argue that metadata ought to be managed the same way data is.
And now, a short 30 years later, metadata is the new data.
Categories: Uncategorized dw
Bernard may have coined the word “metadata”, and he may have isolated the concept so that it could be seen for what it is, but he didn’t invent metadata.
In my opinion, Metadata is nothing new. Metadata has been around for millennia, used just as it is today. It just wasn’t recognized as such.