While as you say the internet search engines do not read the DC metatags,
from firsthand experience I know that Infoseek's Intranet search engine
called Ultraseek reads them. We use this engine in my corporation and when
web documents have DC metadata embedded in the head section we can run very
nice field specific searches. For example, a search statement looks like
this - dc.creator:"hostetter sandra f" and will retrieve only those web
documents where that exact phrase appears in a dc.creator metatag. I
imagine that the Intranet products for competing search engines also
recognize this metadata, but I do not know for sure. In my opinion, of all
of the search engines out there I would think NorthernLight might jump on
the metadata bandwagon sooner than the others. They seem more interested
in people finding the information they are looking for than helping
industry sell product. In Northern Light I just tried the search statement
dc.creator:"miller paul" and received 8 hits, but the phrase "miller paul"
was not limited to the metadata, it also found documents where just his
name appears as Miller, Paul in the document, but not in the dc metadata,
and it found at least one document that does not even include "miller
paul". (I assume there must be something wrong with my search statement.)
The one other issue we need to think about in using dc metadata is that
search engines will need to build the dc.creator, dc.title, dc.subject
prefix needed in order to do field searching into some sort of menu driven
search box behind the scenes so the average user doesn't even know it is
happening. I think only the power searcher (librarians, serious searchers,
etc.) will be willing to bother to type in any additional "stuff." Just my
2c too.
Sandy Hostetter
Rohm and Haas Company
(215) 785-8993
At 11:06 AM 11/25/1998 -0500, you wrote:
>I have a general enquiry I'd like to throw open to the whole list. If
>this has been dealt with before, I apologise in advance for going over
>old ground.
>
>As understand it none of the search engines accessible on the web
>(Yahoo, Alta Vista, Excite, Infoseek, etc.) will actually read DC meta
>tags. Since its fairly obvious that search engines which use metadata
>will be critical to uptake and successful deployment of metadata schemas
>I'm wondering if there is any ongoing dialogue between the DC community
>and the search engine developers. Both communities are primarily based
>in North America so it would seem like a reasonable step. Can anyone
>tell me what is happening and how much progress has been made with
>getting search engine developers to start working on search engines that
>actually read and understand metadata embedded in web pages?
>
>thanks,
>Andrew Wilson
>National Archives of Australia
>Email: [log in to unmask]
>Ph: +61 2 6212 3694
>Fax: + 61 2 6212 3997
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