Tagging and Folksonomies

I really like the concept of tag clouds for catalogs as at the Ann Arbor District Library or as discussed at the Shifted Librarian. Of course this presupposes that you are building a folksonomy in your catalog, but I think there are a lot of advantages to that too as an additional searching method. I do not advocate losing keyword searching or LC subject searching in favor of folksonomies.

Advantages:

Patrons can use real language to enhance your catalog.

You can have lots of tags for the same concept.

You’ll get terms that librarians probably wouldn’t think of in a million years. (All right, this could be a disadvantage as well as an advantage, but lets accentuate the positive, yes?)

It will enhance patrons’ sense of ownership of the library.

Disadvantages:

All those tags could clutter up your catalog.

Patrons might be offended by tags.

Melissa.

YouTube Thoughts

I love that the content is so varied. Really bizarre amateur videos, National Archives and Records Administrations videos (including NASA, National Parks, and Newsreel footage), popular culture (Leonard Nimoy sings "The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins"), music, and just a lot of random stuff.

Going to the Google Video homepage lets you search Google Video, YouTube and Crackle at the same time.

The Monty Python/Star Trek video in the post below really tickles my funny bone.

Features of YouTube that could be useful for library websites? Do you have a while? I'm just going to pick two:

Folksonomies - I really like the idea of patrons being able to tag services and books and other items we own, and building up a network of subject headings that, while subjective, are probably going to be of more use to more patrons than the very stilted language of the Library of Congress Subjects Headings. Don't get me wrong; I'm not advocating getting rid of the LCSH - they serve a very important purpose. They're just often not very accessible.

RSS - I would love to be able to have a list of authors on file in our catalog and get notified when we order something by one of them. Hit or miss is just so...hit or miss.

Melissa.