Week 6: Tag you're it

The Nature Publishing Group remarks, "Just as long as those hyperlinks (or let's call them plain old links) are managed, tagged, commented upon, and published onto the Web, they represent a user's own personal library placed on public record, which - when aggregated with other personal libraries - allows for rich, social networking opportunities." Where there was once (and still is) search engine territory, now exists a dynamic bookmarking service for online collaboration and shared taxonomy of web information.

Tagging may be utilized as a means for libraries to harness the complexity of the web (which is much too large and fluid to ever catalogue) in a realistic and viable way. With the help of social software, personal libraries can be transformed into virtual bookshelves of communal information.

Tagging from a bottom up approach opposes traditional thesaurus type collections edited by scholars of virtually the same age bracket, lifestyle and clothing attire (per se) by opening up classification to a broader network of individuals from varying ages, sexes and backgrounds. Following the trends of classification within a broad community of online users over a period of time may determine how and what various social groups are tracking and the kinds of taxonomy being developed in the evolution of web classification.

By creating a virtual online dictionary of web pages, online language and definitions have reached new levels of fluidity. While it can be argued that this fluidity may take away from compilations of information that have long persisted as certified sources of knowledge, tagging's fast turnover rate, changing as society fluxes and shifts, accelerates traditional classification development. I question whether it is possible to track tagging changes as reflections of our online social environment/behaviour. Is tagging merely continual chaos; an online amassing of obscure lists expanding as it popularizes?  

Like any language, standard methods of classification grow out of usability and functionality. Trends and similarities between content and classification will always remain fluid and yet maintain a sense of continuity between users.

A language and classification schedule determined by web users, while different from history's great traditional classifiers, still only represents a select sampling of individuals within the community. Where the impoverished fit into virtual /traditional classification schemes is yet, and unlikely, to be seen. Perhaps it is a good thing we still have library buildings after all.  

Tagging is more flexible, more abundant, and less structured than traditional forms of organization. It allows the user to quickly scan popular tags and the information associated with it.

As a utility for distance education, tagging creates a community of distributed research, accessible to everyone who has the web. There are very few restrictions with social bookmarking. I feel as though I am privy to the personal notes of individuals seeking out information and folding page corners. On UPenn's and Seldoiva's Public Library site, tags are placed predominantly at the top of the page for easy scanning of current and interesting topics. It nearly harkens back to the days of browsing for popular information. Here you can peruse tags and choose ones of greatest interest to the public (or you). Of course the downside of this choice is an RSS Style feed of the most popular hits on a grand scale being fed to the user.

Social bookmarking's cycle of searching behaviour begins privately, becomes public and then resumes privately again. This cycle of locating information, sharing it with others and then resuming personal leisure activities mirrors the experience of a library patron. While this activity helps build and perpetuate a library, it does  not necessarily organize it.