Tagging and Folksonomies

This week, we will be looking at tagging, also known as folksonomy. Tags are keywords that people apply to content they are posting online. For example, if a blogger is talking about a Stephen King novel, they may apply the tags "scary," "thriller" "gory" or "favorite," depending on their perspective. A library catalog record, on the other hand, may just have one subject heading applied to this book - Horror.

Schedule for Week 2

OVERVIEW by Tuesday - Learn more about tagging.

EXERCISE by Tuesday - Explore how tags are used in the social bookmarking tool delicious. By the end of this exercise, you will have created a delicious account, added at least one bookmark to the account that is relevant to the topic of this class, and added a semls20 tag so that we can share what we have found with others in the class.

EXERCISE by Wednesday - Explore the photo sharing site Flickr. By the end of this exercise, you will have seen how libraries are using Flickr and have added a photo to your blog using Flickr's blogging tool.

EXERCISE by Wednesday -  Create an account on LibraryThing. By the end of this exercise, you will have added three book to your account.

READING by Thursday

• Read "Tagging Meets Subject Headings" from LibraryThing's ideas blog,Thingology.
• Take a look at the semls20 tag in delicious and take a look at any site or article that interests you. This a great way to learn from the information your classmates found while doing the delicious exercise.

DISCUSSION by Thursday - Post a comment to this page reflecting on the exercises you did this week. While posting, consider the following questions:

• Of the three services you visited this week, which did you personally like the best? Which do you think would be the most useful in a library? Why?
  
• What are some ways you could use delicious, Flirck, and LibraryThing in your library?
• How does a LibraryThing record compare to the MARC record in your library's catalog? Is there information in the LibraryThing record that make it a more valuable source of information than a standard MARC record?
• In what situations do you think tagging is most useful for locating information? How about LC subject headings?

WEEK 2 EVALUATION - When you have finished this week's exercise, please be sure to fill out the  evaluation.