Reading Notes (4)

Database @ Wikipedia

I understood very little of this article. I did get the fact that databases are not all cut from the same cloth, so to say, that they are not all alike, and can differ in organization, software, operation and structure, but the specifics of most of those aspects are lost on me, because phrases like "the flexibility of ad hoc query capabilities provided via the relational algebra execution algorithms of a relational DBMS," are somewhat hard to decipher for me. However, knowing that things like development and components define and and organize how the database will work illustrates that fact that when using and evaluating databases, you need to know some specifics of what you're looking at.

Introduction to Metadata

Gilliland brings an important problem to the forefront in this section of her book, about the lack on consistency in structure and basis of metadata. What she says about the development of very basic metadata systems, which can be expanded at the need and desire of the specific community that is using it, is something which I would expect to become very popular in the future. The "interoperability" of such a system when dealing with the basics all systems would share is surely an advantage that most communities would find beneficial. The ability to customize, at least to a degree, the system would also prove an attrative advantage. The tables she included really cleared up some of the questions I had, as to the definitions of some of the terms she used, and I thought they nicely summed up her explanations of metadata itself.

Dublin Core Data Model Initiative

The DCMI is one of the systems that Gilliland mentioned as one of the systems on the horizon in her book. Thus, with unique element identity, a basic system is established, with extensibility and further refinement and changes allowable. I think this, or a similiar system, is something that will be a growing trend of the future. Its flexible structure could be applied to all sorts of collections, physical and digital, and its basic structure ensures that use can be a simple or complex as a specific community or collection requires.