Worry Not!

The Metadata Duck may have just been replaced as an icon by DigiMan, of Team Digital Preservation. DM, as he is chest-labeled, makes his debut in this video from DigitalPreservationEurope(DPE), which has begun a series of "short animations introducing and explaining digital preservation problems and solutions for the general public..."



For me, as a metadata fanboy, the money quote comes at 2:25 into the story, as DigiMan comforts the tweedy, data-bereft scientist before vanquishing the evil forces of Team Chaos:

Worry not! The data have been annotated with descriptive information -- or "Metadata," as we call it -- which is just like having an instruction manual to understand the information.

I recommend reading that back, out loud in the voice of Batman, as played in the 1960s by Adam West. Slowly... with quiet intensity and pregnant... pauses... and uneven syllabic stresses. Maybe with a touch of Jim Kirk as well.

Challenge: I fully expect to hear this quote back from the podium at some point during the NSGIC annual conference in Cleveland this fall. There's probably a Dogfish Head in it. If I remember.