Tagging

I think tagging is something that most of us librarians at least over the age of 40 (or maybe just the tech services folks like me) tend to cringe at. I was raised in a world of controlled vocabulary and it is hard to let that concept go.

I have encountered tagging all over--probably the most prevalent on flickr and on Youtube. The quality is extremely variable. In some cases, when thoughtful people knowledgable about a subject apply tags they can be very useful. In other cases I have seen long strings of not very useful tags on an item.

I think the question though is not really so much "does tagging belong in libraries" as "tagging is clearly here to stay, so what do we do about it now." It is just one of those things that everyday users are going to want to do. It is intuitive, can be fun and in some senses useful and logical. Does it supplant an army of subject specialists really hashing over the issues? I really don't think so.

I suppose, at present, I can see a purpose to have both systems coexisting. I don't see why articles and other media objects shouldn't be classified in the traditional manner as well as letting users tag them. Ultimately, it just increases the possible data points for searching. Perhaps overl0ading it in some cases and destroying the kind of precision us fuddy-duddy exacting types enjoy, but I am afraid this is one battle we have probably already lost. :)