“Poorly described data are like a book shelved in the wrong place. They practically don’t exist,” explains Petra Černohlávková.
A researcher may spend years collecting valuable data. But if those data remain on a personal drive without proper description, they effectively do not exist for anyone else. Metadata determine whether data can be found, understood and reused, and their importance is growing further with the rise of artificial intelligence. “For AI tools, well-structured and rich metadata are a gold mine,” says Petra Černohlávková, Head of the Repositories and Metadata Management Department at the National Library of Technology. In the interview, she explains why simply storing data is not enough, how the right repository can make a difference, and where AI can already reliably take over part of the work.
