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
Recent Comments