Thing 13: Tagging

I'm afraid I haven't gotten the hang of tagging yet. Where I can categorize (blog, libguides) I just use categories. I opened a Delicious account last year, but didn't get the hang of it and never returned. I find tag clouds a bit confusing. I suppose social tagging is a skill that requires practice.

I like the idea of collective intelligence. I believe that a group can create something greater than the sum of its parts. For that reason, I think tagging could (and does) result in some wonderful and surprising connections among disparate ideas. (Check out Twine, which I mentioned in my Ning Thing, for an example of what could turn into collective intelligence in action.)

I understand why many librarians it uncomfortable to imagine users tagging content, especially as a replacement for librarian-created subject headings. We can see the problems with a lack of authority control when we try to find content organized solely by user-created tags. (How badly should we mis-spell words to attempt to get all relevant returns?)

But I don't think we have to resort to an either/or scenario. Several applications are available that allow users to add tags to catalogs. I haven't heard or read much yet about how well that's succeeding. I suspect it will take some time to determine the results. I consider myself cautiously optimistic that tagging could result in a richer experience for our library users.