January 7, 2008
Google Plans Searchable Text in Images
InformationWeek reports that Google filed a patent in June 2007 for a technology that could make text in images searchable.
The yet-to-be-developed technology detailed in the patent application carries serious implications for the future of search technology, particularly in regard to the Google Book Search project.
What could that mean for the future of academic research and the role of libraries? In an interview, Wendy P. Lougee, University of Minnesota librarian, frames the would-be technology in the context of “discoverability” — the ease with which an item can be found through a search.
“With respect to images, the challenges have been in the metadata,” or the data that contextualizes items in a database, she says, and the potential technology “could significantly enhance” librarians’ ability to catalogue and retrieve information. —Hurley Goodall
Posted on Monday January 7, 2008 | Permalink |Comments
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I was just trying to find specific text in old photocopied records, so the Google technology will be helpful. But searching for information, with its semantics component, as opposed to structural data, whether from ASCII or images, is a much-bigger issue. Why aren’t the NSF and other agencies mounting a major attack on the problem after all these years? And why do I have to know so much about searching, representation, and structure, instead of merely being a domain expert with good questions?
— S. Britchky Jan 8, 04:02 AM #