This book serves as a primer on information and knowledge organization, with particular reference to metadata practices in the digital environment. It introduces the conventions and standards of contemporary document description, and the principles and trends of professional practice. Employing the unifying mechanism of the semantic web and the resource description framework, Hider integrates the various traditions and practices of information and knowledge organization. Uniquely, he covers both the domain-specific traditions and practices and the practices of the “metadata movement” through a single lens—that of resource description in the broadest, semantic web sense. This approach more readily accommodates coverage of the new RDA: Resource Description and Access standard, which aims to move library cataloguing into the center of the semantic web. The work surrounding RDA looks set to revolutionize the field of information organization, and this book brings both the standard and its model and concepts into focus, making it essential reading for LIS students taking information organization courses at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, information professionals wishing to specialize in the metadata area, and existing metadata specialists who wish to update their knowledge.