The design of metadata for the Digital Museum Initiative in Taiwan

Metadata plays a crucial role in a digital library/museum environment. However, the development of metadata is not an easy task. Its formulation starts with analysing the attributes of collections as well as understanding the user information needs and information seeking behaviour. The issue of interoperability also needs to be considered in terms of both semantics and syntax. This paper discusses issues related to the development of metadata in Taiwan. It describes the development process of a Chinese metadata system, Metadata Interchange for Chinese Information (MICI), and an XML/metadata management system, Metalogy. Both were developed under the Digital Museum Initiative sponsored by the National Science Council of Taiwan.