LIS 9763

This week's readings seemed to present a conflict in my mind, how can libraries continue to catalog materials using hierarchical subject headings and introduce folksonomies through tools such as Library Thing without sending mixed messages to users?  On one hand OPAC subject headings may be "exclusive" in their choice of words, but on the other hand folksonomy methods of describing materials (through tags) seem insufficiently descriptive.

According to Emanuele Quintarelli, folksonomies are extremely appropriate for helping internet users sort through "web content generated through web logs, wikis, and other social tools."  However, I ask myself, what types of information are libraries cataloging?  Books, videos, DVDs, talking books, CDs, in other words physical media, not ideas as are made known through social software.  Ellyssa Kroski indicated that folksonomy are indicative of a "user-centered era of the Web" not "expert-directed" through the use of "exclusionary models of information organization."  
Ellyssa's choice of words to describe "experts" seems to carry negative connotations.  However, this idea of the practicality of folksonomies being discussed in her article is in the context of the World Wide Web, not the local library.  I totally agree with the practicality of her and other authors, such as Emanuele, that there is far too much information available on the web to implement a structured taxonomy based information organizational system.  I see libraries as a very different case though.

According to Lee of Headshift, "In practical usage scenarios the trade-off between simplicity and precision [in reference to folkonomy versus expert-generated taxonomy] makes sense [on the internet]."  It is unanimous among the readings provided for this week that there are significant limitations to using folksonomy based information organization methods.  These include: lack of synonym control which leads to lack of recall capabilities, lack of descriptive precision, a flat hierarchical structure which relies on basic vocabulary often failing to describe the complexity of subject matter in the material, and "gaming" or the ability of users to spam the system by tagging too many times within individual entries.  Although subject headings and other forms of taxonomy have limitations, I do not see folksonomy as a very efficient method of overcoming these limitations.

Examining the case studies for this week, I discovered one very common theme among those libraries who used tags to describe items in their catalogs: overly simplistic categorization of materials.  I understand that library users want to participate in sharing their ideas about materials.  I think that this can be extremely useful in describing the contents of materials, for example the theme of a book; this could be achieved by incorporating a wiki into an OPAC.  With each of the searches that I conducted I found that the items that had assigned tags were described in greater detail through the highlighting of keywords and subject headings then by the tags themselves.  For example, I searched for the keyword "folksonomies" on the Libraries of the Claremont Colleges OPAC and found that the most popular tag was "Web 2.0," but when I looked at other items with this same tag I didn't find anything on folksonomies.  In short, the tag seemed to simply pour everything that had some relationship into one big bucket!  (A librarian's nightmare!)  I found this same issue on the Danbury Library Catalog.  I did a title search for "Charlott's Web" and found 5 related tags on children and books, and 6 related tags on variations on animals.  Again, not only were these tags lacking specificity, but there was no synonym control to prevent the same book from being tagged a dozens times with simply variations of the same 3 or 4 words.  

Looking at the "All Tags" page of the University of Michigan Library caused me to ask a similar question as to the efficiency of providing tagging capabilities on OPACs, that being, is the popularity of certain tags over others simply a self replicating phenomenon?  What I mean is, do people simply use certain choice tags over others because the simplicity of the language is something that can be commonly understood.  What is the criteria used when choosing what tag to assign to an OPAC entry?  Well, I believe the answer is that depends on the person doing the tagging.  In short, there seems to me to be a strong possibility that people replicate the use of tags because the words used are often simple and all encompassing, causing few very large "buckets" opposed to many smaller more specific "buckets" of information.

Another issue that I ran into when searching the OPACs provided through this week's case studies was the total lack of monitoring terms used for tagging.  When conducting a title search for "Harry Potter and the Deathy Hallows," one of the associated tags was "Do you control tags?"  This is a perfect example of how the tagging system being used is not fully understood by the users and would benefit from editing.

Well...after all of this what might appear as ranting, I can safely say that I'm not a big supporter of the idea of using folksonomy to tag on OPAC material.  I think that librarians would provide a greater service to their patrons by teaching them better search techniques to find what they are looking for.  For example, search using keywords and then consult the subject headings assigned to pertinent articles to discover more articles (or books, etc.) on the same topic.  If users gain enjoyment out of folksonomy in the library realm, then all the power to them-go for it!  But, I simply do not want to provide a disservice to patrons by implementing a tagging system that does not provide relevant materials to patrons.