Tagged

But not in the bad, call-the-graffiti-removers way. Warning: possibly boring dribble ahead (of course, I hear you cry, it's your blog).



I found the wiki article on folksonomies pretty interesting. I have messed around with tagging things a little but hadn't previously thought much about the implications of folksonomies vs taxonomies. It seems pretty clear that both have things they do well: folksonomies have a practically non-existent entry cost, in terms of learning a system and how to apply it, and can be applied to rapidly changing concepts like....let me see...well, most of Web 2.0, without worrying about information hierarchies.



Taxonomies, on the other hand, have a much higher entry cost but have less duplication, more accurate targeting, all the stuff we as librarians like to make it easier to find information. Both have their uses and will continue into the future: I think what's really going to be interesting the interface between the two, and what role librarians are going to play in that. Who else better to understand and make sense of the way information can be organised and categorised?