Why collect Metadata?
The Report of the Committee of Enquiry into the Handling of Geographic Information (The Chorley Report) established that the use of geospatial data was crucial but was difficult because of;

• poor knowledge of the existence of data
• poorly documented information about the datasets
• data inconsistencies

Now over ten years later we hear the phrase "information is power". With increasing amounts of data being created and stored (but sometimes not organised) there is a real need to document the data for future use - to be as accessible as possible to as wide a "public" as possible. There are significant benefits in doing so:

• helps organise and maintain an organisation's investment in data

• provides information about an organisation's data holdings in catalogue form or to brokers, resellers and clearing houses