Aug 28, 2009

Geoffrey Nunberg Uncovers Google's Mistakes at I School's Google Books Conference

From Forbes

Sigmund Freud Is A Tech Writer!

This and other bizarre information has turned up in Google Books searches.

By Quentin Hardy

BERKELEY, Calif. -- Google Books has the contents of 10 million volumes--and some amazing howlers.

Speaking at a seminar [sponsored by UC Berkeley's School of Information] Friday on Google's book search service, Geoffrey Nunberg, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Information, presented Google Books searches that showed:

--Charles Dickens is listed 182 times as an author on books that came out before his birth year of 1812.

--William Shakespeare's Hamlet is listed under "Antiques and Collectables." A book on Australian feminism is listed as "Foreign Languages." A biography of Mae West is part of "Religion."

--A book on the Mosaic Web browser has Sigmund Freud as the author. Henry James wrote Madame Bovary, a book written by Gustave Flaubert.

--The Internet is mentioned in 527 books written before 1950.

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October 4, 2016