Week 4 readings and muddiest point

Database: wikipedia

I've used databases extensively in my work.  I was surprised to read then that the term was first employed in 1963.

This database language would have been helpful when dealing with a database designer about 2 years ago, who developed a database for my company which did not meet our needs at all.

I found myself clicking the various links on the wikipedia page often (of course, I'm learning) and found it a challenge to wrap all the information up into an understandable idea of the general computer database model.  In essence, I glean that there are different kinds for different uses, all with their strengths and weaknesses.  More study here needs to be done on my end.  

Setting the Stage: Anne J Gilleland

very interesting article.  I found figure 1 about the life span of metadata helpful.  I left the article wondering, "but what does metadata look like?"  Luckily, I figured this out with the next reading.  I would like to learn more about the non-digital metadata, perhaps this will aid in understanding.  But I understand the life cycle and that metadata is a statement made about the information object to make it more searchable.

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1)    Eric J. Miller. An Overview of the Dublin Core Data Model http://dublincore.org/1999/06/06-overview/

******This article is not available on the web, for me anyway.  Everything else is loading fine.  I tried this article and also tried looking at http://dublincore.org//documents/usage guide.  I think their server is down.

I was able to find information on Dublin Core here: dc2006.ucol.mx/papers/martesmartykurth.ppt.

This is a power point presentation from Cornell which also contains a very clear metadata definition which I found most helpful to explain the previous article.

I'm guessing Dublin Core is what is in use right now in internet search engines?  That is was developed in response to large growth of documents on the web and poor existing indexing capabilities.  It seems pretty open ended and easy to use for the non professional.  Again, this computer language is all new to me, but I found this presentation to be helpful.  They even had a slide as an example of what a metadata description could look like, which helped immensely.

MUDDIEST POINT: 

I do not think I am successfully absorbing all this new computer language and ideas for digital management.  Is there a hands-on tutorial of some sort?  I fear tat reading about it will leave me in the dark as to this world of knowledge.  On my end, I'll keep reading my notes and re-reading articles to try and make sense of it somehow.