What's New

09/03/02

Metadata: A Push for Shared Standards in Public Broadcasting

Through the efforts of the CPB-funded Public Broadcasting Metadata Model Project, metadata is on its way to becoming a household word in public radio. Launched in spring 2002, the Metadata Model Project is an industry-wide initiative to develop a core metadata scheme that will facilitate the distribution of content to diverse audiences across a variety of media.

Adopting consistent metadata standards will enable digital assets stored by any public broadcasting entity to be compatible with current and future electronic resources and, therefore, more easily retrieved. The ContentDepot, NPR Distribution�s new service model for program delivery, will include distributed storage of programming and metadata.

NPR Distribution is participating in the project as a member of the Metadata Working Group. The Working Group consists of individuals representing public television and radio stations, producers and program distributors, and national organizations. The group is tasked with establishing guidelines for a series of core metadata elements that can be incorporated into a model that is scalable to any organization within public broadcasting and that takes advantage of existing metadata work already underway by stations and producers.

If you have a radio asset management system in place or under development, we�d like to hear about it. Please contact Marty Bloss, director of Technology, at 202.513.2676 or via email. As the Working Group progresses with its model, we will share updated information with users via Sound Ideas as well as on www.prss.org.

What is Metadata?

Metadata is data about other data. Metadata consists of a set of standardized elements necessary to describe a resource. In public radio, a metadata record can include standard elements such as title, creator, subject, description, and rights to describe a program.