Methods and apparatus for prioritizing and sorting metadata to be displayed

A method and apparatus for computing metadata fields that are valuable or informative based on a particular operation, such as a sort field employed in sorting the content items, dynamically displays the informative metadata fields as a display set with the respective content items in response to the sorting field. A rule set defines a priority of metadata fields for display based on a particular metadata field selected as the sorting field. The rule set is based on a predetermined conclusion about fields deemed to have particular descriptive value to a user when a particular metadata field is employed as the sorting field. The salient metadata fields are selected according to a deterministic rule set indicative of which metadata fields are to be displayed for a particular sort field. The rule set therefore defines a priority of metadata fields to be displayed for each metadata field selected as a sort field.