Metadata serves several purposes. It supports resource discovery, locates the actual digital resource by inclusion of a digital identifier, organizes electronic resources bringing similar resources together and distinguishing dissimilar resources, provides administrative information for controlling the digital library, and provides technical, preservation and rights management information needed to support immediate and long-term permanent access. There are a variety of metadata schemes that serve different purposes for different object types, subjects and audiences. With disparate metadata schemes, ensuring that information collected in a specific scheme by one organization for a particular purpose can be exchanged, transferred or used by another organization for a different purpose becomes an issue. Metadata frameworks, crosswalks, and registries are ways to achieve interoperability. Controlled terminologies add more precise meaning to metadata. The integration of controlled terminologies and metadata schemes is key to the development of the Semantic Web.
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