Metadata
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Metadata
/ˈmɛtəˌdeɪtə/ (n.)
Information about information. Data that describes other data.
For example, if news in a newsletter is the primary data, the newsletter’s size, its author, its recipients, its publication date, the date it is read — these are all points of metadata.
Metadata is how databases work: For each single item in a database there will be associated fields, each representing a single point of metadata.
Excel is the greatest example of metadata: Each row in an Excel field is an item and each column is a metadata point. You can add an unlimited number of columns: newly added columns do not affect or change existing ones, so we say they are non-destructive.
Once you have a table of columns in Excel, you can filter sort and pivot by reference to any of the columns, in any order. Doing this is to impose a dynamic hierarchy on the items in the list. This is the magic of metadata.
It is curious that we intuitively understand this when presented with a spreadsheet but it does not occur to us when presented with SharePoint, which is, basically a supercharged online version of a spreadsheet.
A rich, underused, resource. There is a long essay on metadata and folders in our article about SharePoint.