Why did PICS use the term “label”, with all of its negative associations?
PICS documents use the term “label” broadly to refer to any machine-readable information that describes other information. Even information that merely classifies materials by topic or author (traditional card catalog information) would qualify as labels if expressed in a machine-readable format. The PICS developers recognized that the term “label” has a narrower meaning, with negative connotations, for librarians and some other audiences, but it was the most generic term the PICS creators could find without reverting to technical jargon like “metadata.” In media with centralized distribution channels, such as movies, labeling and filtering are not easily separated. For example, unrated movies are simply not shown in many theaters in the USA. In addition to its technical contribution, PICS makes an intellectual contribution by more clearly separating the ideas of labeling and filtering. Many of the negative connotations associated with “labeling” really should be associated with centra
