Karen,

First, don't denigrate the work you've done at DP compared to what
people in this group have done or might do. Your stuff is what makes
this worth doing (and even talking about.) It should also be what 
largely determines the requirements and priorities for PG and DP development.


I think "librarianship" is a good metaphor for PG's role for purposes of
your question. To what degree does PG function as a library - assemble
books in a common store, make sure they are in good shape,  and 
make it easy to find and acquire books  (for free!).

Do the degree that's accurate, then your understanding of metadata is
pretty good - as it applies to PG more than to the construction
of ebooks. But the DP production line is a good place to collect
and identify some of that metadata, because it's inherent in the
title page and other areas we work on.

DP's markup could make it a lot easier to do this. Currently though
it mostly just associates it with display formatting (size, font,
etc.) and the opportunity is lost. I personally already include
it as specific tags in the editor I'm building for eb.tbicl.org. Here's
a specific example of a project title page as it currently appears.


[title-page]
[title]ASTRONOMY
WITH AN OPERA-GLASS
[/title]

[subtitle]A POPULAR INTRODUCTION TO THE
STUDY OF THE STARRY HEAVENS WITH THE
SIMPLEST OF OPTICAL INSTRUMENTS
[/subtitle]

[subsubtitle]
WITH MAPS AND DIRECTIONS TO FACILITATE THE RECOGNITION
OF THE CONSTELLATIONS AND THE PRINCIPAL STARS
VISIBLE TO THE NAKED EYE
[/subsubtitle]

BY

[author]GARRETT P. SERVISS[/author]

<epigram>
"Known are their laws; in harmony unroll
 The nineteen-orbed cycles of the Moon.
 And all the signs through which Night whirls her car
 From belted Orion back to Orion and his dauntless Hound,
 And all Poseidon's, all high Zeus' stars
 Bear on their beams true messages to man."

<attribution>Poste's Aratus.</attribution>
</epigram>

[edition]THIRD EDITION[/edition]

[publisher]
NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
London: Caxton House, Paternoster Square
[pub-date]1890[/pub-date]
[/publisher]

[copyright]
Copyright, 1888,
By D APPLETON AND COMPANY.
[/copyright]

[/title-page]


On Thu, Feb 9, 2012 at 11:43 AM, Karen Lofstrom <klofstrom@gmail.com> wrote:
On Thu, Feb 9, 2012 at 7:48 AM, Lee Passey <lee@novomail.net> wrote:

> I'm particularly interested in hearing from Ms. Lofstrom with suggestions
> about what WEM metadata should be collected, and how it might be structured
> and retained.

I only know that metadata are important, from dipping into librarian
blogs and also from my own struggles to find, retrieve, and store
ebooks.