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Defining Metadata

By David H. Schultz
February 02, 2006

Recently, the term metadata has become an electronic buzzword for litigators, their clients, IT personnel, courts and lawmakers. From the English dictionary to the proposed amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, many information sources are attempting to define and clarify metadata, and its role in modern litigation.

For example, Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary recently added “metadata” to its newest edition and de-fines it as “data that provide information about other data.” The proposed advisory committee note to Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(f) elaborates on that definition, explaining metadata as “information des-cribing the history, tracking, or management of an electronic document.”

The Sedona Guidelines: Best Practice Guidelines & Commentary for Managing Information & Records in the Electronic Age adopts a more thorough definition of metadata, describing it as “information about a particular data set which describes how, when and by whom it was collected, created, accessed, or modified and how it is formatted (including data demographics such as size, location, storage requirements and media information.)”

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