Metadata and Metainformation - Old Concepts and New Challenges

Since the very beginning of computerized data processing there has been a tendency for ever growing amounts of data to be processed and stored by computers. Probably not by accident, the modern computerized data processing was also referred to as mass-data processing. Especially in the environment of the so-called large-scale information systems, as e.g. statistical ones, there was an ever growing necessity to find the ways and means how to handle these rapidly expanding amounts of statistical data. The technological advancement and users needs finally led not only to introduction of very-large data bases and their distribution to the data base networks but also to the necessity to invent and introduce the particular tools for handling especially their content, i.e. data and information in the form of data and information on another-source and/or object data and information, which started to be referred to as metadata and metainformation.