Patent ID: 7640265

Claim:
An information processing apparatus comprising: a holding unit which holds a plurality of pieces of contents data, each piece of contents data being associated with corresponding metadata, wherein the metadata includes a plurality of items associated with corresponding contents data and values of the respective items; a specifying unit which specifies item commonly included in all pieces of the metadata held in said holding unit as common item; a first display unit which displays one or more pieces of common item specified by said specifying unit as information on a first layer of hierarchy; a classification unit which extracts, when one of the one or more pieces of common item displayed by said first display unit is selected as selected common item, values of the selected common item from all pieces of the metadata held in said holding unit and classifies the extracted values to any of a plurality of classification items; a second display unit which displays a list of the plurality of classification items as information on a second layer of hierarchy as a layer of hierarchy immediately below the first layer of hierarchy; and a third display unit which, when one of the plurality of classification items is selected as a selected classification item, specifies a plurality of pieces of contents data associated with a plurality of pieces of metadata from which values classified to the selected classification item are extracted, and displays a plurality of pieces of contents data information indicating the specified plurality of pieces of contents data, and a plurality of common items other than the selected common item of the one or more pieces of common item as information displayed on a third layer of hierarchy as a layer of hierarchy immediately below the second layer of hierarchy, wherein information displayed by said second and third display units present hierarchical structure of the selected common item.