Single word for describing author, time, place and type of a document?

Question

I have a collection of documents (research articles). I have to report about their authors, when they were published (years), where they were published (e.g. Country or University) and what type of documents they are? (e.g. conference papers, journal papers etc).

I want to give a title to this section where I report all these properties of the documents. I was thinking something like geography, cartography etc. but they don't seem to fit for all of the mentioned properties. Is there any word in English that can cover all these properties?

Any help would be appreciated.

Answer 1

Metadata is frequently used in this context. The logic being that the documents contain, if not comprise, the main data in the study and the type of information you are talking about is 'data about that data'.

Your section header would be Document Metadata.

Answer 2

I would call what you are looking for an annotated bibliography.

Note: @Graffito has suggested bibliography in a comment.

From Dictionary.com:

bibliography: a complete or selective list of works compiled upon some common principle, as authorship, subject, place of publication, or printer; a list of source materials that are used or consulted in the preparation of a work or that are referred to in the text.

annotated bibliography: a bibliography that includes brief explanations or notes for each reference [emphasis added]

Annotated bibliography would seem to come close to what you are seeking:

"I have a collection of documents (research articles). I have to report about their authors, when they were published (years), where they were published (e.g. Country or University) and what type of documents they are? (e.g. conference papers, journal papers etc)."

Annotated captures the fact that you need to "report about their authors", i.e., add brief explanations or notes for each reference. If you don't need to "report about their authors" in this way, the word you are seeking may be simply bibliography.