In this episode, we’re joined by Ole Olesen-Bagneux, Chief Evangelist at Actian and O’Reilly author of Fundamentals of Metadata Management (2025) and The Enterprise Data Catalog (2023). Ole’s career bridges library science, enterprise architecture, and modern data platforms, and his insights remind us that metadata is much more than just technical plumbing — it is how organisations define meaning. Together, we explore what it really means to bring meaning and context back into metadata. From the centuries-old wisdom of librarianship to the messy reality of enterprise data catalogs, Ole helps us see how the logic of the library still holds lessons for today’s objectives in data and tech. We discuss why so many metadata systems feel like catalogs abandoned halfway through, and how we can return to designing for discovery. Between these deeper ref ...