The debate between folksonomies and more formal classifciation is an interesting one and one that will no doubt continue for a few years yet. I recall writing an essay on the topic at library school several years ago.
As a cataloguer and classifier I have to admit I am a bit traditionalist about the whole thing and having just tried to tag my earlier posts have to say I probably remain so. How frustrating was it that if you had tagged something with a similar tag before blogger tried to change it to that tag even if this would result in some nuances of meaning being lost? Rather than free-styling I was having to think about using different vocabulary to try and express such differences.
I also think that advocates of folksonomies are a bit harsh on more traditional hierarchical systems of arrangement. Although admittedly in terms of classifcation with a shelfmark / number something for reasons of physicality has to be more one thing than another no matter how cross-disciplinary, this needn't necessarily apply to the subject headings given to that same item. The use of more than one subject heading can express such 'otherness'. Subject headings are by nature a more evolutionary form of classification and new ones can be proposed expressing new concepts (I think of the LCSH "dog scootering" here - yes it exists!) more easily than new classification numbers.
I also don't agree with the idea that someone searching for information on 'films' doesn't want to know about 'movies' just because they have chosen not to use that term. Surely it is because they do that some Web 2.o technologies display / suggest related terms to the user.
I think ulitmately it depends on the reason behind the tagging. If we are to consider serious research / archiving then the likelihood is that a common controlled term is going to be more useful no matter how that term was suggested in the first place. If terminology is related to the age in which it is used terms will become obsolete and valuable information lost if it is not indexed / recorded in some way. However, if we are just tagging photos of our friends with their names, for example, then we are not likely to care about what term we have used.
I await the barrage of comments from those less traditional among you!
As a cataloguer and classifier I have to admit I am a bit traditionalist about the whole thing and having just tried to tag my earlier posts have to say I probably remain so. How frustrating was it that if you had tagged something with a similar tag before blogger tried to change it to that tag even if this would result in some nuances of meaning being lost? Rather than free-styling I was having to think about using different vocabulary to try and express such differences.
I also think that advocates of folksonomies are a bit harsh on more traditional hierarchical systems of arrangement. Although admittedly in terms of classifcation with a shelfmark / number something for reasons of physicality has to be more one thing than another no matter how cross-disciplinary, this needn't necessarily apply to the subject headings given to that same item. The use of more than one subject heading can express such 'otherness'. Subject headings are by nature a more evolutionary form of classification and new ones can be proposed expressing new concepts (I think of the LCSH "dog scootering" here - yes it exists!) more easily than new classification numbers.
I also don't agree with the idea that someone searching for information on 'films' doesn't want to know about 'movies' just because they have chosen not to use that term. Surely it is because they do that some Web 2.o technologies display / suggest related terms to the user.
I think ulitmately it depends on the reason behind the tagging. If we are to consider serious research / archiving then the likelihood is that a common controlled term is going to be more useful no matter how that term was suggested in the first place. If terminology is related to the age in which it is used terms will become obsolete and valuable information lost if it is not indexed / recorded in some way. However, if we are just tagging photos of our friends with their names, for example, then we are not likely to care about what term we have used.
I await the barrage of comments from those less traditional among you!
Actually I agree with you wholeheartedly, and though not a cataloguer, I do think it would be difficult to reliably retrieve the relevant information with uncontrolled language if you are looking for something other than the social stuff out there.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, that idea of people who want information on movies not wanting information on films also jumped out at me as a ridiculous assumption.
An awful lot of mon-medics use PubMed/Medline because of its controlled language. Must mean something! Here we are in the unknown unknown again, and we are trying to help people dive into that and get what they want. Most people have trouble enough explaining what they want at the enquiry desk - usually takes a couple of passes before you've nailed it, so I would GUESS that tags unless well done would not really help
Hadn't thought about people at the enquiry desk as I don't find myself there too often but you're absolutely right. Determining what users actually want rather than what they ask for can sometimes be an interesting challenge.
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