Legal Research

Metadata Tsunami

By Michael Lines

Author, Title, Publisher, Date. Doesn’t seem that hard, really. I guess that’s what the Google geniuses (see also Apple Genius) thought when they set up Google Book Search.

Turns out, its not that easy. Anyone who has been tempted by the promises of citation managers, and then had their hopes dashed on the rocks of bibliographic complexity, knows this too well. The criticism of Google Books Search’s performance is pretty trenchant. And now this article doing the same service for Google Scholar. Its a metadata tsunami. Something like that Fishbone song:

Karma Tsunami
comin down on you with the weight of the sea
it ain’ never fun: the repercussions of the concussion
of the karma tsunami from what you’ve done

Full post as published by Slaw.ca on September 29, 2009 (boomark / email).