Some time after UKOLN was originally set up a letter was received from a
company claiming they had some ownership over the word 'Internet' and
querying UKOLN's use of it.
Lorcan
On Tue, 2 Mar 1999, Dan Brickley wrote:
> Date: Tue, 2 Mar 1999 23:43:30 +0000 (GMT)
> From: Dan Brickley <[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Metadata(TM)
>
>
>
> This was recently sent to the Dublin Core mailing list, and gives some
> detail on historical usage of the term. I'd personally be happy to see
> 'metadata' vanish from usage as there's rarely much use in
> distinguishing 'meta'data from plain old 'data'. But then someone in the
> states is bound to claim rights over 'data'(tm)...
>
> Dan
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Thu, 25 Feb 1999 10:08:32 -0500
> From: "Weibel,Stu" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: "[log in to unmask]" <[log in to unmask]>
> Cc: "[log in to unmask]" <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: History of the term 'metadata'
>
> Dear Metafolk,
>
> I have had a correspondence with Frans Van Assche that I think has
> historical interest for us, and he has kindly permitted me to forward this
> note to the list. It particularly tickled me to see that from the
> beginning, the notion of meta-meta was recognized as a threat to clarity.
>
> Many thanks to Frans and his colleagues for reminding us that our history
> goes back further than a few weeks.
>
> stu
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
> Dear Stu,
>
> My old friends (we are all older than fifty now:-) have come up with some
> information about the term meta-data:
>
> 1. Dr. T.W. Olle thinks that the term metadata was first used by Peter
> King who wrote a seminal paper on data dictionary work sometime in the late
> sixties. However the oldest reference we could find (credit to prof. dr.
> Hannu Kangassalo of the University of Tampere) is the following:
>
> Sundgren,B. An Infological Approach to Data Bases. URVAL No.7, Statistiska
> Centralbyrn, Stockholm, 1973. Ph.D. dissertation. page 104 - 105:
>
>
> "3.2.5 Metainformation
>
> As was pointed out in section 2.1, the infological apprach to data bases
> stresses the distinction between:
>
> (a) the real-world phenomena that we are interested in, the object
> system
>
> (b) information about the the object system
>
> (c) data reperesnting information about the object system
>
> .....
>
> .... Accordingly, the data base should contain quality information and
> other information about the information contents of the data base. We shall
> refer to such information as "information on information". Information on
> information is made up by messages, the object components of which are
> themselves messages.
>
> Information on information is one important category of meta-information.
> The latter concept also covers
>
> - information about the basic constituents of the particular
> infological model underlaying the data base; eample: formal and informal
> definitions of attributes and object types
>
> - information about the data representation of the information
> contents of the data base; example file descriptions.
>
> Remark. Data representation of meta-indormation will be called meta-data.
> Sub-systems of data bases containing mata-information and data
> representation thereof may be called meta-data-bases.
>
> Remark. If we exclude from the object system the phenomena informed about
> meta-information and represented by meta data, we are left with a
> sub-system of the ofject system which we shall now and then refer to as
> "the object system proper"."
>
> 2. The oldest implementation of a proper metadatabase we could trace
> (credit Prof. Dr. Meersman and myself)
> is in the EDMS database management System developed by the Data
> Management Research Lab
> of Control Data Corporation. Ref: User Manual van EDMS v.5,
> Control Data Corporation, Brussels, 1978.
>
> Note: earlier versions of this manual may exist.
>
> I remember the term metadata and metadatabase was used in our lab from the
> mid 70ties.
>
> 3. Dr. T.W. Olle concurs that the term was in use in the seventies. He
> adds "However, we (the UK delegates) discouraged its us because it was
> confusing once you start talking about meta-meta data and meta-meta-meta
> data and it is not to be found in the standards on Information Resource
> Dictionary Systems."
>
> 4. My personnel recollection is that already in the seventies it was a
> standard term in the database research community and especially in the
> Northern part of continental Europe: Scandinavia, Benelux, Germany, which
> was at that time leading in information modelling methods.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Frans Van Assche [[log in to unmask]]
>
>
Lorcan Dempsey <URL:http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/>
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