Week 8 Folksonomies

Folksonomies

Taxonomies were developed to apply an orderly hierarchal structure to knowledge. They rely on users to search for information, using specific terms, in a pre-determined order. This order is often awkward and difficult to remember.   Thus, library patrons often search using everyday language. Folksonomies are an attempt to classify information on the Internet or in an OPAC using everyday language. Folksonomies are a form of classification by the public as an alternative to taxonomies developed by specialists. Folksonomies are often developed by users employing social bookmarking software.  Folksonomies remove the sometimes apparent artificial barriers in taxonomies. For example, Cold War -- History, Cold War Political Aspects United States and Cold War Sources are some of the over twenty Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) related to the Cold War. Patrons tagging books might find that several headings are similar enough that they should be tagged under a single heading. Subject headings are very useful but what do patrons do if there is not a subject heading that correlates to their topic of interest? The U2 or Able Archer incidents are two such examples. Searching for information on these events using keywords is possible but inaccurate at best. Library staff or patrons could create terms in Folksonomy to create an unofficial subject heading to fix this oversight.

Case Studies

LibraryThing for Libraries provides a great utility to integrate Folksonomies with a library’s OPAC. A library using LibraryThing for Libraries has access to book lists, reviews, and even a way to search other libraries for copies of books that a patron may want. The  Ann Arbor District Library,  Blais Catalog - the Libraries of the Claremont Colleges, and the Danbury Library Catalog implement LibraryThing and are examples of providing OPAC services that are a step above traditional online  catalogs. I am impressed by LibraryThing’s ability to develop a site with book reviews that transcend other book review sites albeit they force readers to register and pay for access but the results are superior.

Beyond Folksonomies

I found myself puzzling over how Folksonomies could be improved. It then occurred to me that people generally think of subjects in an analog way. Often, thinking is not black or white but a shade of grey. In a traditional taxonomy, a book’s content can include the Cold War, politics and economics but it must be classified according to it’s predominate theme – Cold War. In a new analog system Cold War, politics, and economics would coexist in varying quantities, thus creating a unique subject combination while another book with the same subjects in different quantities, would result in a different combination. An analog folksonomy would be richer and more useful as terms would be in plain language and assigned a weight rather than the traditional taxonomy which relies on a digital [yes/ no] dichotomy.