Lesson #12

EXERCISE I.
1. Go to Google and type in a topic that interests you. See how many hits you retrieve.
I chose Songwriting - 9.29 million hits
2. Do the same keyword search in eQuest and see how many hits you retrieve.
Songwriting - 8 hits
3. Now search for the topic as a subject (or author if it is an author) in eQuest.
Songwriting (LCSH) - 0 hits
See:Popular music--Writing and publishing - 32 hits
Questions:
1. Can you see a parallel between the catalog and tagging in Web. 2.0?
LCHS may be linguistically awkward and unnatural. In contrast, tags are usually too general and they are completely lacking in control (there is no way to even group singular and plural tags--much less synonyms).
2. Do you think tagging is a reinvention of library cataloging? Or, do you think that tagging is a continuation of tradition of library catalogs, but an expansion of that tradition into new and exciting possibilities?
No to both.
3. Or, do you see another angle to tagging?
I think that tagging a la flickr, photobucket, etc. is, generally speaking, an uncontrolled mess.

EXERCISE II.
1. Review the tags in your blog, in Flickr and in Library Thing. Think about the terms you have used. Having learned a little more about tagging, consider changing your tags to make them more searchable. You may even want to add more tags. For instance, in case you haven’t noticed, Flickr allows up to 75 tags per photo. Please don’t be like the cataloger writing these words who learned that in traditional cataloging 1 to 3 subject headings are enough. Go wild with your tags if you want to.
But first we should ask: What approach do we want to take? "A." Do we want to set up general tags so that an unknown searcher may dig through a mountain of material to possibly find (and probably ignore) our photos, etc. Or, "B." Do we want to make sure that the people that we want to find our photos (etc.) can do so. Maximizing the number of general tags will not help us if "B" is our goal.
2. Add a few words to your blog about the joys of tagging.
Originally, I had tagged my photos with EKU and Libraries. Today, I added the tag: ekulibraries because I noticed that other folks at EKU Libraries were using this tag. Hopefully, this additional tag will increase the gathering function for my photos for the folks here. I really does not matter that much to me if other folks, with no connection to EKU, can find my photographs or not.