Discovery Exercise #17-- Tagging and Folksonomies

Years ago there was a cataloging librarian in Hennepin County named Sanford Berman. He was known for creating new or different subject headings he thought common folk (not librarians)would be more likely to use or search under. He was eventually forced to retire from his job because the administrators at HCL wanted him to conform more to Library of Congress subject headings and he refused. After viewing this lesson on tagging and folksonomies, I have come to believe Sanford Berman was a man ahead of his own time.

I can't count the number of times I have tried to search for a cookbook only to be reminded that the LC search term is "cookery" not "cooking" or "cookbooks". I have searched (usually in vain) for "cozy mysteries" or "gentle fiction", eventually resorting to Yahoo! or Google for suggestions because I couldn't find anything fitting the patron's criteria in the library catalog. (When was the last time you searched a library catalog for an adult mystry or fiction book that had no graphic sex or graphic violence?)

But, I can also see the downside to tagging and folksonomies, too. If everyone catalogs books according their own criteria or descriptions, how will we know where to find books or what is reliable? Would a book on low cholesterol diets (with recipes) be found in cooking or in health? Would a cozy mystery have no violence? a little violence? a medium amout of violence? Do we need separate shelving classifications (or shelf spaces) for the amount of death or violence in each mystery?

This is an intriguing dilemma--one that makes me glad I am not a cataloger!

Incidentally, I added "cooking" "cookery" cookbooks" "diets" and "recipes" in the labels section of this post even though none of those items are contained in this post. Which means if anyone is searching this blog for those items, they maybe disappointed. But that just illustrates an earlier point I made: if we conduct searches using tagging or folksonomies, how will we know what is reliable?