Problems with Tagging

I'm very pro tagging and think that library patrons  should be allowed to add tags to bibliographic records in library catalogs. That being said, I'm trying to keep an open mind to see how this social experience of tagging is developing both pro and con. Here's a link to a brief article, "Tagging: It’s no longer fun and easy". It raising some problems that are developing as tagging becomes more popular.

• "The first problem with tagging is semantic vagueness. For example, does the tag “china” apply to the country or crockery?"
• "A second problem is that the format of tags isn’t standardized."
• "The third and perhaps biggest problem is the overuse of tagging. How often have you seen a blog item with a list of tags almost as long as the item itself?"

The conclusion is that tagging will become more standardized and complex in the future.

"... in the near future you will either not be bothering with tagging or you’ll have moved on to the next generation of tagging which will be more complex (probably based on XML) and demand more effort to use. Tagging will no longer be fun and easy."

Of course, as catalogers and metadata librarians, we are use to such standardization and complexity using the Library of Congress Subject Headings.

Via International and Comparative Librarianship

Comments

[Nathan]

In terms of the library catalog, maybe this is a way for LCSH and tagging to work together? User tags could be applied to records and then LCSH could be used to refine those tags. I envision a screen with "china" listed twice and then underneath it (and indented) would be the LCSH term to help refine the tag. Users could search tags (terms they are more familiar with) and then help refine what they want to the LCSH. It would be different the cross-references because the tags and the LCSH would be attached to the bib record and not to an authority record.

[David Bigwood]

Given enough tags some algorithm can be applied to clear up the ambiguity to a high percentage, (but not 100%) Check out the Flickr clusters for Turkey, there are clusters for Thanksgiving and another for Earthquakes.

The reason folks tag is for their personal use, not for others, except for us catalogers. Unless I take pictures of china plates and the place China, it does not matter to me that it confuses others. I know what I mean when I tag something China. My tags are for me. if you make tagging more complex people just won't tag.

[Chris Schwartz]

Is anyone aware of an ILS that is already integrating tagging along with LCSH? It would be great to see an example along the lines of what Nathan is describing.

[Tom]

I never like the idea that these ideas have to be at eachother's throats or be mutually exclusive. Tagging and LCSH overlap greatly but not wholly in their purpose. The great advantage of tagging for me is that stuff, especially on the web, gets indexed at all and there is a potential army of millions to help us do it. I think the next great leap forward will be a version of what David points out Flickr already do, where tags are applied by (in library terms) uneducated users which can be processed and interpreted by an application aware of a properly constructed taxonomy. Similarly, tags could provide the necessary focus for efforts at automated indexing.

[Benjamin Hockenberry]

Chris Schwartz asked:
"Is anyone aware of an ILS that is already integrating tagging along with LCSH? It would be great to see an example along the lines of what Nathan is describing."

UPenn's PennTags project was one of the first:
http://tags.library.upenn.edu/tag/cataloging