“It is no secret. All power is one in source and end, I think. Years and distances, stars and candles, water and wind and wizardry, the craft in a man's hand and the wisdom in a tree's root: they all arise together. My name, and yours, and the true name of the sun, or a spring of water, or an unborn child, all are syllables of the great word that is very slowly spoken by the shining of the stars. There is no other power. No other name.”    - Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea

What is Metadata?

Put simply, it’s data about data. The who, what, when, where and how that outlines the properties and tags to categorise the information on a piece of data, defining its purpose. 

Take, for example, a digital image. The file may tell you the size of the image, the date & time it was taken, what type of camera was used, and where the photo was taken. This is metadata, it gives you more insight into the data asset.