Metadata and metadata standards help information professionals increase the value of the information. Metadata usually contains basic bibliographic information and other key details such as provenance. Metadata certifies the content, establishes context, and identifies relationships among the context.
After reading the articles I was surprised to see that I have already had a lot of experience with different types of metadata systems: LCSH and EAD,
Also, I recall writing a paper for my undergraduate library course on "user created metadata". Specifically, I remember that one of the major problems with user created metadata is the lack of uniformity and standards among users. For example, the difference between US and UK spelling of words can cause confusion. I am not sure if user created metadata works well enough to be considered the future of information description, but it is already being used on social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook that allows for tagging capabilities.
As far as Mendelay goes, I just started using it this year for graduate school. Prior to this, I had always been used to using EndNote as a data managing system for my research. In response to the Mendelay article, I believe it serves it's purpose as an information organizer but I think it's real value comes from the fact that you can use it a social network of sorts in order to connect to and discover new research from other professionals in your field. Another reason I like Mendelay is because after importing several articles into your library, it suggest similar readings that are usually relevant and extremely helpful when doing any type of research.
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