walter said:
>   If I am looking for a book written by
>   a particular author, I want to be able to
>   search for his or her name and not for
>   all books about that particular author.

i agree.  but that's not the point at issue.
the point here is that an unhealthy focus
on metadata usually makes one catatonic.


>   I really do care whether the 'van' part
>   in my family names is capitalised or not

i'm sure you do, walter, and bully for you,
which is why it would be a shame if some
o.c.d. cataloger made it uppercase for the
simple purpose of fitting their sort method.

sorting was very important in the old days
where we had a _physical_ card-catalog,
but it's silly to get bogged down in it today.
the o.c.d. people, however, just love to get
bogged down with any subject that they can.

-bowerbird