Tagging in the abstract

December 11, 2007 at 5:03 pm · Filed under LIS768 and tagged: final paper, folksonomy, LCSH, LIS768, tagging

Before jumping into my paper abstract I have to share that monitoring my RSS feeds served me well in writing my paper. Michael had a post about the Dublin City Public Library new pageflakes portal on December 7 which I was able to use in making an assessment of how the library uses tagging with their del.icio.us feed. That was cool. Also, the new DCPL page is cool. Now, onto my abstract… 

My research paper for LIS768 explored the use of tagging in libraries. Tagging is a great library 2.0 technology that takes the user from passive to active in a few easy steps. I first researched what we know about tagging in general focusing on why tagging is appealing and who is currently doing it. Next, I reviewed the websites of six public and academic libraries currently making use of tagging. The trends seem to cluster in the following areas: using tagging as part of the catalog and/or website, making use of LibraryThing for Libraries, and using a social bookmarking tool to aggregate patron recommended resources. I also briefly touched on the tension between tagging, a flat classification system, and hierarchical controlled vocabularies like LCSH. Based on what I learned from my research I made recommendations for the future of tagging in libraries. Basically I think libraries should implement tagging in whatever ways they can. Librarians also need to use the information that they gather from tagging to assist them in collection development. Finally, it will be up to us to work with vendors to ensure that all of our technologies work together and that we are maintaining the privacy of our patrons.

I really liked writing this paper (ok, I’m still not quite done). The information just kept coming. I feel like I could start researching in two weeks and have tons of additional/different info. Stay warm, everyone!

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