1. Alphild Dick
LI804
Research paper
Tag, you’re it:
The history, and future, of folksonomies in libraries
At first blush, the terms “tagging” and “folksonomy” might seem to be a bit of
Web 2.0 jargon, overenthusiastic hype perpetuating a gimmicky digital practice. But has
the hype matched the reality? As librarians, it is important to remember that being
skeptical of technological gimmicks is a part of our job. Given that the jobs of librarians
are coalescing with technology experts, it is imperative that we be able to discern lasting
practices from ones with a shorter lifespan, functionalities that will bring real change into
our modes of practice from those that only promise to.
As we move into the second decade of the 21st century, these concerns are as
important as they have ever been and there are many questions that have developed
around some of the Web 2.0 programs, particularly tagging and folksonomies. What
exactly do the practices of tagging and folksonomy offer library and information
professionals? Do these methods of crowd-sourcing classification and organization really
change the way people seek and use information, or are they simply digital decoration? In
this paper, I will explore their uses, structure, and the benefits and problems with
folksonomies within the context of academic libraries. How do the philosophical
underpinnings of folksonomies compare to those of professional cataloguers? What are
their similarities and differences? I will also consider what implications folksonomies
have for the future of cataloguing and the organization of information within LIS
professions.
2. I. A people’s history of folksonomies
Beginnings with early blogging and social bookmarking efforts in the late 1990s,
folksonomies as they are known today arose in the early-2000s along with “Web 2.0”
ands its focus on “data-driven applications, user participation, simplicity, and information
reuse” (Schmidtz, 2007, pp. 91). The early progenitor of this structure is del.icio.us,
which went public in 2003 with its unique way of organizing and publishing an
individual’s web resources (Galarza, 2011). One common feature of Web 2.0 applications
was the use of metadata annotations, also known as tags. These tags were defined and
organized by users—who were largely untrained non-professionals. That is to say, they
were average Internet users engaging in the act of helping organize web content.
By 2004, these non-professional users could “add tags using a non-hierarchical
keyword categorization system” and with the number of web functionalities providing
this feature on the rise, popularity began to grow among Internet users, although the
practice had not, at that point, been formalized. It was in that same year that Thomas
Vander Wal first coined the term “folksonomy,” a portmaneau of “folk” and “taxonomy”
(QA Focus, 2005, pp. 1).
The term arose after Gene Smith, member of listserv for the Asylomar Institute
for Information Architecture (AIFIA; today known as the IA Institute) wrote: “Some of
you might have noticed services like Furl, Flickr, and del.icio.us using user-defined labels
or tags to organize and share information…Is there a name for this kind of information
social classification?” One member responded with the suggestion of “folk
classification,” leading Vander Wal to respond, “So the user-created bottom-up
3. categorical structure development with an emergent thesaurus would become a
Folksonomy?” (Vander Wal, 2007).
In explaining his logic behind this, Vander Wal wrote, “I am a fan of the word
folk when talking about regular people…if you took “tax” (the work portion) of
taxonomy and replaced it with something anyone could do you would get a folksonomy.”
He notes that, “the value in this external tagging is derived from people using their own
vocabulary and adding explicit meaning, which may come from inferred understanding of
the information/object. People are not so much categorizing, as providing a means to
connect items (placing hooks) to provide their meaning in their own understanding”
(Vander Wal, 2007).
Folksonomies, both as a practice and as a concept, grew in popularity throughout
the end of the 2000s. Users engage in tagging on sites such as deli.ci.ous and Flickr, but
also on Amazon, Facebook, LibraryThing, and CiteULike. In fact, it is safe to say that
most users engage in this activity with little awareness that they are creating
folksonomies. This, in turn, begs the question of how we actually define the concept. In
its briefest definition, a folksonomy is “a people’s taxonomy” (Pink, New York Times,
2005). PC Mag describes the term as referring to “Classifying Web sites by the user
community rather than by taxonomy professionals. Folksonomy is said to provide a
democractic tagging system that reflects the opinions of the general public”
(Folksonomy). A more expanded definition, notes that the term folksonomy “describes
the users, resources, and tags, and the user-based assignment of tags to resources.”
Hothno goes on to say that, “the new data of folksonomy systems provides a rich
4. resource for data analysis, information retrieval, and knowledge discovery application”
(Hotho, 2010, pp. 66).
On the other hand, Vander Wal provides a slightly different view on what a
folksonomy is. He writes, “Folksonomy is the result of personal free tagging of
information and objects (anything with a URL) for one’s own retrieval. The tagging is
done in a social environment (usually shared and open to others). Folksonomy is created
from the tag of tagging by the person consuming the information” (Vander Wal, 2007).
But even when we know what folksonomies are, there is still the question of how
they are formed. Although folksonomies do not, by definition, by operate on the basis of
a controlled vocabulary, research has been conducted to peer into the ideas behind them
and what their use says about how humans create and use organizational structures.
Although one can find a number of complicated algorithms detailing the structure of
folksonomy, for the lay person, for the layperson, the most important aspect of
folksonomies is that they require three basic elements to function: the user, the tag, and
the resource. According to the researchers Ching-man Au Yeung, Nicholas Gibbins, and
Nigel Shadbolt, folksonomies depend on the interrelation of the user, tag, and resource.
They note, “a tag is only a symbol if it is not assigned to some Web
resources…Similarly, a user…is characterized by the tags it uses and the resources it
tags. Finally, a document is given semantics because the tags act as a form of annotations.
Hence, it is obvious that each of these elements in a folksonomy would be
meaningless…if they are considered independently” (Yeung, Gibbens & Shadbolt, 2007,
pp. 967). Folksonomies, therefore, are not just a manner of organizing information—they
are a method of creating meaning as well.
5. II. Folksonomies and cataloguing
From a theoretical standpoint, folksonomies provide a counterpoint to the other
main methods of classification, such as professional cataloguing. Both methods of
organizing information do, of course, share some philosophical interests. Both are
interested in creating accessibility and organization within a body of information. They
seek to replicate our understanding of relationships between and within items and allow
us to locate.
For purposes of explication, it is useful to explore how tagging and folksonomies
compare with a formal classification system, such as the Library of Congress
Classification system, which is commonly used in academic libraries. In the LCC,
resources are categorized in a hierarchical format; for example, one could create a
hierarchy of Languages and LiteratureGermanic LanguagesWest Germanic
LanguagesYiddish. Moreover, exclusivity becomes a factor; even though under LCC, a
work can belong to multiple categories, it is presumed to be about one main thing more
than another, regardless of the actual contents. Using the example of Yiddish, the book
Yiddish: A survey and grammar by Soloman Birnbaum heavily deals with the Jewish
Diaspora, yet the book is said to be, primarily, about the grammatical structure of the
Yiddish language. Interesting, within the framework of hierarchical classification system,
it is assumed that, for this book, a “logical place already exists within the system, even
before [the resource] was published” (Noruzi, 2007). In other words, the book can be
made to fit within the order of the classification system, not the other way around.
6. In comparison, folksonomy-based classification is not based on exclusivity nor
hierarchy. To begin, at least among digital resources, folksonomies do not require any
sort of physical constraint upon a resource; a link may be located in any number of places
at any given time. Moreover, folksonomies operate in a hierarchy-optional manner.
Websites such as Del.icio.us give users the option of creating hierarchies within their
gathered resources, but it is not required (Noruzi, 2007). Hierarchies are an especially
interesting aspect of folksonomies to examine. Unlike the top-down nature of taxonomy
within library classifications, folksonomies take a bottom-up approach to classification.
Another aspect to consider is the issue of authority control. Authority control, or
the practice of developing and maintaining index terms, within library classification
schemes comes from official thesauri. For folksonomies, however, authority control is
elusive. A user can use the tag “TV” or “television,” “auto” or “automobile,” “fridge” or
“refrigerator,” creating what is known as tag redundancy. Folksonomies do have the
option of utilizing optional authority controls, which is done by connecting tagging
systems to previously created authority controls and/or controlled vocabularies (Noruzi,
2007).
If we consider the philosophical issues in the discussion of formal cataloguing and
folksonomies, one issue that comes up is the question of who is charge. After all,
“catalogers have traditionally been responsible for expressing the subject, the
‘aboutness,’ of a work by choosing subject terms from controlled vocabularies such as
Library of Congress Subject Headings” (Tappeiner & Lyons, 2009, pp. 111). To be sure,
cataloguers are mindful of the guesswork that goes into this activity, the reality of the
situation being that cataloguing efforts are only approximations.
7. In the eyes of proponents of Web 2.0 and the social nature of folksonomies,
tagging and folksonomies are “necessary antidotes to the hierarchical nature and
inflexibility of controlled vocabularies. Groups of users with similar interests may use
similar tags, creating flat and democratic folksonomies as opposed to a hierarchical
controlled vocabulary” (Tappeiner & Lyons, 2009, pp. 111). Folksonomies also allow for
quick cultural and linguistic adaptations; recent words and technologies can be brought
into the fold much more quickly than the ponderous LCC or DDC, and different
linguistic groups have the opportunity to engage in the classification process.
III. Folk practices: The uses of folksonomies in libraries
Today, folksonomies are being used widely throughout web-based applications,
but they have also found their way into information institutions, such as libraries and
archives. One particularly interesting area of use is within the institution of the academic
library, which are often able to explore the forefronts of new information technologies
with greater daring than public libraries or archives.
Within academic libraries, there are a number of interesting studies regarding
folksonomies and tagging. As scholars Yong-Mi Kim and June Abbas (2010) write about
academic libraries, “Recognizing the importance of the knowledge repository and sharing
capabilities of this functionality, academic libraries increasingly adopt this functionality.
For example, 76% of academic library sites (13 out of 17 total academic library sites)
provided user tagging.” The enthusiasm over Web 2.0, moreover, can be seen in the
creation of projects like the Penn Tags project, undertaken at the University of
Pennsylvania, where students and faculty can contribute to the collection of tags within
8. the university’s library OPAC (Abbas & Kim, 2010). A similar enterprise has been
undertaken at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School
Library. Through the H20 Playlist, a shared list of readings and other intellectual content,
students can create tags and share them with fellow students (Redden, 2010).
Other institutions, such as the Oviatt Library at California State University, have
brought in user-created metadata from LibraryThing for Libraries (LTFL), a list of tags
provided by users of the social cataloging site LibraryThing. LibraryThing is then which
linked to a library's catalog via ISBNs, and tags for a library catalog record are given. By
September of 2008, 25 academic libraries and 68 total libraries were implementing
LTFL. One particular study reported that the use of LTFL at the Oviatt Library at
California State University, Northridge resulted in a substantial increase of resource
discovery; users found four new books using LTFL for every new book found through
Library of Congress Subject Headings (Willey, 2011). Similarly, the DeweyBrowser
allows users to look for Dewey Decimal subjects or click on those within the tag cloud
and find related resources in WorldCat, which are customizable by language, format and
audience.
Two other tools for librarians looking to harness the tags and folksonomies are
LibMarks and LibGuides, both developed by Springshare, a Web 2.0 company that
focuses on developing programs for libraries and educational institutions. LibMarks is an
application that was designed with libraries and institutions in mind, allowing bookmarks
to be saved and rated. As part of a content management and information sharing system,
it also allows libraries to integrate services with social networking sites. Moreover,
LibMarks has widgets that let library professionals share tags and information via blogs
9. and instruction delivery systems. LibGuides, on the other hand, has a more specific goal
in mind. It allows library professionals to make subject guides and send links to users; it
also offers the option of allowing library professionals to create tags and tag clouds for
individual library guides (Redden, 2010).
The incorporation of tags and folksonomies generally follows the movement to
incorporate aspects of Web 2.0 into library practices, such as blogs, social networking,
and podcasts. These new practices allow for one of the core tenants of Web 2.0,
personalization, to be brought into foreground. Personalization in this context allows
users to “customize or tailor content or store frequently visited links” (Abbas & Kim,
2010). Tagging and folksonomies also create the opportunity for users to utilize natural
language in their searching; instead of relying on predetermined phrases, users now have
the capacity to engage searching and organization based on their own knowledge and
understanding of language, as well as its relationship to resources.
The ideology behind these activities within the library setting is very much akin to
the ideology that has encouraged the growth and development of Information Commons
among academic libraries—a desire to make the library an accessible, intellectually
organic location. As researchers Booth, McDonald, and Tiffen (2010) note, the
folksonomies and the commons model both allow customization of space that creates
information systems and structures that are more intuitive and navigable for the user.
Moreover, the commons model and folksonomies offer what appear to be adaptable,
engaging, and responsive models for the future of libraries (p. 6).
But are they as adaptable and engaging as proponents argue? The interest in Web
2.0 technologies, folksonomies included, does not always translate to use and adoption.
10. Some of the challenges and setbacks experienced by academic libraries in their attempts
to institute these technologies are outlined in the 2010 study by June Abbas and Young-
Mi Kim. They note that adoption rates are far lower than one would expect them to be,
especially given the interest. They write that, while 76% of academic library sites offer
user tagging (which allows for folksonomies to develop), “Tagging and folksonomy…are
the least utilized functionalities” of all of the Web 2.0 options, with only 12-13% of
libraries use them.
On a certain level, this is surprising. After all, the present generation of college
students is often presumed to have a high comfort level with Web 2.0 technologies that
libraries have gone to great pains to integrate into their systems. Abbas and Kim suggest
that the low levels of adoption of “user-initiated functions” like tagging and folksonomies
have something to do with the relationship of the user to the institution; perhaps users are
concerned about contributing because they believe “their contributions may not be
consistent with the views of the experts'” (Abbas & Kim, 2010). In addition, these user-
initiated knowledge creation spaces also may not be advertised to the users as a means
that they can contribute their knowledge within the library community.
IV. The new future of folksonomy
It is interesting to point out that the studies cited above, by Abbas and Kim and by
Redden, were published within a very close frame of time—April and May of 2010,
respectively—yet they come away with very different analyses of the use of tagging and
folksonomies in academic libraries. Redden is relatively optimistic about the continued
use of these functionalities, but Abbas and Kim, on the other hand, are much more
11. measured in their response, considering their lower adoption rates within academic
libraries.
Suprisingly, Abbas and Kim do not focus on how problems within tagging and
folksonomies may impede user adoption. Indeed, there are areas in which folksonomies
can be improved. Language, in particular, presents a special challenge. Although natural
language searching is one of the benefits of folksonomies, there are problems with the
way language is represented in tags. Four main language problems can be identified:
plurals, as tags of “car” and “cars” are distinct and often not mutually searchable;
polysemy, or words with two or more meanings; synonymy, or different words with
similar meanings; and depth of tagging, or the specificity allowed by tags in searching
(Noruzi, 2007). There are other questions to consider as well. How will, for example,
academic libraries maintain tags over time? Although one of the charms of tagging and
folksonomies is that it allows users to utilize current linguistic standards to assist in
searches, language is an ever-changing thing. What happens, then, when the meaning of
tag terms changes over time (Medeiros, 2008)?
Resolving these issues will improve utility of tags and folksonomies for academic
libraries. But the feelings of the end user cannot be ignored. One issue that needs to be
addressed is one of the fundamental assumptions behind the addition of tagging and
folksonomic capabilities within academic libraries—do students want to search this way?
Tagging and folksonomies are ways of organization that are purported to be more
“democratic,” but literature often fails to define what this means and why it is of
importance to users. Another more basic question also must be addressed: do users of
academic libraries have the skills to navigate systems using tags and relying on
12. folksonomies? Although there are a great many undergraduate students with excellent
technological skills, the presumption that all college students are digital natives may be
off the mark; the digital divide affects the college-going demographics as well. Redden,
however, aptly suggests that instruction in the use of tags and creation of folksonomies
may go a long way towards ameliorating problems of this nature. She writes that through
“teaching students to use tags, whether through workshops or bibliographic instruction,
librarians may also emphasize tag literacy, defined in part by the use of properly spelled
tags and collective tags, when appropriate. Encouraging users to be aware of the
collaborative nature of tagging and the most conscientious ways to participate in tagging
communities promotes socially responsible bookmarking” (Redden, 2010).
How the future of tagging and folksonomies develops remains to be seen. Among
scholars, the consensus seems to be as follows: it will be interesting to see what happens.
Certainly, the aforementioned issues will need to be addressed if folksonomies are to be
incorporated, in the long-term, into formal classification structures and retrieval systems.
But, as Abbas and Kim’s study points out, there is one heartening aspect to the effort.
Academic libraries are interested in how their users look for information and accessibility
and usability remains a high priority. Returning to a philosophical point of view, although
librarians must continue to be critical of new technologies, it is exciting to see the efforts
of academic librarians to make their collections as accessible as possible to users, as well
as to involve users in the classification process. Classification, even within academia,
should not be an us-versus-them proposition; tagging and folksonomies can help us
encourage this develop.
13. References
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