By Kenneth O. Kreis

If technology sometimes seems to pose two new problems for every problem it solves, take another look. Look to technology for help.

Keep in mind that metadata helps us track, find and quickly manipulate documents and data, making possible much of what we appreciate about electronic documents. Nonetheless, it’s clearly important we know what it is, where it is and how to get rid of it when it is undesirable.

Following, are some resources for understanding and controlling metadata. If you are reading this in a paper version, you may want to check out the online Bar Bulletin in order to more easily access the linked material. Go to http://www.kcba.org/barbulletin.

Tips on several ways to save yourself from embarrassment are discussed in “Remove hidden data in Microsoft Word documents,” Kim Komando - 1/16/2006 http://www.komando.com/kolumns_show.asp?showID=9468

Payne Consulting, one of a number of software vendors that produces a product for “scrubbing” metadata from documents (including a limited, but free, download), offers several articles on the topic at its Web site: http://www.payneconsulting.com/pub_books/articles

To identify more metadata scrubbing vendors, simply go to your favorite search engine and type in a phrase such as “metadata scrubber” or “eliminate metadata.”