23 Things Number 13

I did a paper on folksonomies in library school and think it is a really fascinating topic. It is also, at least in my experience, a really divisive topic for librarians. People tend to love tagging or hate it. I actually think there is a place for both tagging and traditional cataloging in libraries. I think there will always be a need for subject heading lists, thesauri, and professionally trained catalogers. However, if any Web 2.0 applications are to be integrated into libraries, I think that tagging will have to be part of that because tagging is such an important component of Web 2.0. What is great about the Internet is the democratization of information (it is also what is frightening and alarming in many ways but that's a different post) and I think that allowing people to label their own information, without the aid of professional tools like subject headings and thesauri, is part of that process. Will tagging usurp cataloging. I don't think so. But I do think that tagging and other web applications will change what we do in libraries, not just for catalogers but for all of us.