Patent ID: 7203765

Claim:
A system for facilitating production of information material, the system comprising: a plurality of metadata nodes operable to process metadata describing a content or attributes associated with the information material, one of said plurality of metadata nodes including a material generation apparatus operable to generate the information material and the metadata describing the content of said information material; and a data communications network for communicating said metadata between said metadata nodes, wherein said metadata is represented as metadata strings, and at least one of said metadata strings includes a resource identifier providing a location address of an associated metadata resource, said metadata string being communicable separately from said information material via said data communication network and said associated metadata resource is accessible via said data communication network using said resource identifier, wherein one of said metadata nodes is operable to respond to an alert string identifying that said metadata resource is available at one of said metadata nodes to receive said metadata string in response to said alert string, said alert string including an indication as to whether said metadata resource is persistent or volatile and consequent upon determining that said metadata resource is volatile, and said metadata node which received said alert string is operable to receive the metadata resource from the location address provided by said resource identifier included in said metadata string.