| I keep this book close to me at work and usually stick it in my laptop case when I leave for home. It is my bible for metadata. The first time I read it, I carefully underlined passages with a fine light pencil. Now I've tossed book decorum to the winds and use highligher pens! To mention just one general topic, Elaine Svenonius grapples with all of the key issues that trained librarians face when cataloguing digital materials. She also covers controlled vocabularies from several perspectives, and understands the challenges/difficulties of applying standard "book" classifications to rich media collections. That it took me a long time to get through this book has nothing to do with her style -- Elaine Svenonius writes clearly, often beautifully -- but rather with the amount of information and the mind-expanding concepts, which I still mull over as I wrestle at work with asset management. |