Free Text v. Keyword Searching: The Battle Continues

Back on July 5, I commented specifically about Google and the use of thesauri for structured searching. Today, I opened the July issue of Library Journal, and there as the Backtalk column is a discussion of metadata. Jeffrey Beall does a great job of outlining the issue. What I like even better is the way that the editors of LJ used three key subheads in the article:

• Battle plan
• Institutionalizing imprecision
• Defend metadata

That sums it up. Keyword searching seems like the answer. To those of us with experience, it is not only NOT the answer, but is incredibly frustrating when it is the only option to look for a known source.