Running Head: Folksonomies and Subject Authorities Coexisting within Library Catalogs

Folksonomies and Subject Authorities Coexisting in Library Catalogs Hannah Wilson Emporia State University LI810: Research in Library and Information Science Dr. Andrew Smith Fall 2011

Folksonomies and Subject Authorities Coexisting within Library Catalogs Abstract Social tagging is a relatively new practice that allows online users to tag or catalog digital items using their own terminology. The vocabulary that is created by these social tags is called folksonomies. The concept of social tagging and folksonomies has caught the attention of librarians as many libraries are developing online catalogs that mirror Web capabilities. Traditionally, library catalogs classify and organize information using comprehensive subject

authorities and controlled vocabularies such as Library of Congress Subject Headings. There has been much discussion about the possibility of incorporating folksonomies and social tagging capabilities into library catalogs, alongside subject authorities. It is a fairly new concept that is being tested and developed by libraries around the world. While some libraries have already adopted social tagging capabilities into their catalogs, it is a new concept that is in the very early stages of development. This paper will review scholarly literature regarding how folksonomies compare and relate to subject headings to determine whether they might coexist within library catalogs. Keywords: social tagging, user-generated tags, metadata, LibraryThing, Delicious, libraries

Folksonomies and Subject Authorities Coexisting within Library Catalogs Folksonomies and Subject Authorities Coexisting within Library Catalogs Social tagging is a fairly new practice that allows users to apply terms or tag digital objects or records in an online environment. It has become an increasingly popular tool for

organizing and cataloging books, music, images and other online resources. There are numerous terms used to describe the act of tagging digital objects including: social tagging, social classification, social annotation, collaborative tagging, social indexing, user-generated metadata, and others. The vocabularies that these user-generated tags develop are often referred to as folksonomiesa blend of the words folk and taxonomy. Many of the studies that have been conducted regarding social tagging have analyzed websites such as LibraryThing and Delicious. LibraryThing is a website that catalogs your books online, easily, quickly and for free (LibraryThing, 2000). Users can input or catalog the books that they are reading and then tag the books with their own subjects. Delicious is a social bookmarking service that allows users to keep, share, and discover the best of the Web by bookmarking websites of interest (Delicious, 2003). Users of Delicious also have the ability to tag their bookmarks using their own subject terms. Libraries have developed detailed systems for cataloging subjects within their catalogs called subject authorities. Perhaps the most widely used controlled vocabulary for cataloging subjects in libraries is the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH). There has been much discussion regarding the integration of folksonomies and user-generated metadata into library catalogs and whether it may improve access. This paper will investigate research that has been conducted within the field of Library and Information Science regarding how folksonomies

Folksonomies and Subject Authorities Coexisting within Library Catalogs relate to standard subject headings and the possible benefits of the two coexisting within library catalogs. Method Section Searching for literature on the topic of folksonomies and subject headings was fairly complicated because there are so many terms used to describe social tagging. Several searches were conducted, including the words: social tagging, user generated metadata, folksonomy(ies), library catalog(s), Library of Congress, subject headings, etc. There are many articles that have been written on the topic of comparing and contrasting user tags with subject authorities, specifically, LibraryThing and LC Subject Headings. Articles that varied in methodology and data samples were selected to represent the breadth of research on this fairly narrow topic. Article Review The following section provides analyses of several research articles regarding how

subject authorities compare and relate to folksonomies and how they might coexist within library catalogs. One of the seminal articles written on this topic is by by L.F. Spiteri and is titled The structure and form of folksonomy tags: The road to the public library catalog (Spiteri, 2007). This article was referenced in nearly all of the other articles included in this paper. The author posits that the addition of folksonomy vocabularies in public library catalogs could serve as a powerful and flexible tool for increasing user-friendliness and interactivity. First, the author analyzed daily tag logs from three popular websites that allow for user tagging: Delicious, Furl, and Technorati. The tags were collected over a thirty-day period and entered into a spreadsheet

Folksonomies and Subject Authorities Coexisting within Library Catalogs consisting of three lists, one for each website. Variations for like terms were considered to constitute as two unique tags (car vs. cars). The user tags were compared to subject authorities by applying the NISO (National Information Standards Organization) guidelines for thesaurus construction to the three lists. They specifically applied the guidelines: term, choice, scope, and form against the tags. The authors then determined the frequency that NISO elements were noted in each site to determine if any patterns in tag structure exist and the extent to which these patterns mirror the design of controlled vocabularies. The author found that roughly 20% of the tags, combined between the three sites, were homographs and half of the 20% were unique tags (only used once). Overall, it was determined

that the tags examined correspond closely to NISO guidelines, specifically the structure of terms, concepts expressed, predominance of nouns, and use of alphabetic characters. Problems were identified in the fact that there were many inconsistent uses of singular vs. plural forms of nouns, many homographs, and several abbreviations and acronyms. They suggest that websites that allow social tagging should establish guidelines to address notions of ambiguity, abbreviations, and homographs in tags. They also suggest that the sites should allow for cross-reference capabilities between similar terms. The article User tags versus expert-assigned subject terms: A comparison of LibraryThing tags and Library of Congress Subject Headings (Lu, Park, & Hu, 2010) compares and contrasts user tags and subject headings from two distinct entities: LibraryThing and LC Subject Headings. The authors performed quantitative research by collecting samples of MARC bibliographic records provided by the Library of Congress and samples of social tags created by users on the LibraryThing from the same set of books. They compared the unique user tags to the LC Subject Headings subject entries for the entire sample of books. They found that about

Folksonomies and Subject Authorities Coexisting within Library Catalogs 50% of the unique user tags overlapped with LC Subject Headings. They also found that the number of terms applied to the same books by online users was much higher than LC Subject Headings that were applied by professional catalogers. The article Linking folksonomy to Library of Congress subject headings: An exploratory

study (Kwan & Lois, 2009) is another study in which the authors attempt to determine the extent to which folksonomies overlap with LC Subject Headings. Their study compares user tags from the popular social bookmarking site, Delicious (Delicious, 2003) to LC Subject Headings. The data set consisted of 4,598 web pages including tag histories from the Delicious website. From those tags, 409 were considered common tags (tags that were used in more than one instance per webpagewith the assumption that tags that only occur once do not properly represent corresponding websites). Next they collected a sample of three sets of user tags representing different frequencies (high, middle, low) with the hypothesis that less frequently used tags have a lower chance of matching LC Subject Headings. The LC Subject Headings are presented in a

LCSH tree structure in which LC terms are nodes and broader/narrower terms are parent/child nodes. Concepts are separated into different trees in which no trees/concepts overlap. The tags are then applied to their corresponding trees to determine how a tag and a subject heading spread out over concepts and thus, how they link. A quantitative algorithm was created to determine statistically how the tags overlap the subject headings. As expected, a large portion of the differences found in tags was in singular vs. plural forms and variants (catalog/catalogue). 45% of the tags used were very specific terms and as a result, did not match with any LC Subject Headings. The authors suggest that with the elimination of personal tags, folksonomies do, in fact, overlap in many cases with LC Subject Headings and that integrating the two into a library catalog could be beneficial but would require careful planning.

Folksonomies and Subject Authorities Coexisting within Library Catalogs In the article Transcending library catalogs: A comparative study of controlled terms in Library of Congress subject headings and user-generated tags in LibraryThing for transgender books (Alder, 2009), the author believes that user generated tags that are created from those belonging to a group that is underrepresented in LC Subject Headings can help to develop a vocabulary that is more representative. In an attempt to use books with higher numbers of tags, all of the books selected were at least nominated for an award. Twenty books from a range of genres and for diverse audiences that also represent a wide range of transgender themes were selected. Tags from LibraryThing and bibliographic records from WorldCat were gathered and analyzed. They were ranked according to the most commonly used tags for each book. Those terms were then compared to LCSH (rather narrow) terminology pertaining to transgenderism. The author notes that the study was limited in that they were not able to tell the actual demographics of the taggers on LibraryThing and WorldCat. It is suggested that while

controlled vocabularies are often limiting and imprecise, social tags are often too widespread and random. The author posits that combining the two in a hybrid environment could create a blend in a library environment but would require careful planning in developing online tagging capabilities. The article To tag or not to tag? (Marliese, Dana, & Cecilia, 2009), is another example in which the authors apply quantitative analysis to determine the extent to which folksonomies replicate LC Subject Headings. They believe that social tagging could augment LC Subject Headings in a way that would improve user access. The authors analyzed six libraries that are using social tagging within their catalogs (using LibraryThing as one of the six because of their rich tag base). Next they chose ten books that represented diverse subject content (a cookbook, a graphic novel, childrens book, fiction, biography) but that were popular reads, because they

Folksonomies and Subject Authorities Coexisting within Library Catalogs assumed they would have more tags. Both the folksonomies created by social tags and the LC Subject Headings created by professional catalogers were recorded for each book. This study used a scale that was developed in an earlier study about social tagging systems in which the authors measured tags used in a similar bookmarking website, Delicious, to identify seven functions of tags. After using this scale to identify all of the tags they separated them into two groups: what the book is about and what the book is. The majority of the tags within their sample came from LibraryThing, mostly due to the fact that many patrons are not aware of their ability to tag within the library catalogs. Nevertheless, they found that folksonomies would complement LC Subject Headings by providing richer metadata. Further studies would provide more relevant results if and when social tagging increases within library catalogs. Discussion The articles reviewed in this paper sought to answer the question: how does user generated metadata compare with subject headings and can they coexist in library catalogs? Social tagging is a relatively recent tool within social networking websites and is very new for libraries. There are many relevant and substantial benefits to be considered in integrating folksonomies into authority controlled subject headings. Integrating language created by users can enhance user access by adapting the vocabulary that they have created; the act of tagging is interactive and encourages users to further engage library catalogs; folksonomies inform rigid subject headings that may be exclusionary, biased, or outdated. Yet there are also many problems that arise in integrating user tags with subject headings: homographs and variants can be difficult to track and account for and metadata could become flooded with unrelated or inappropriate terms; it would take considerable effort to eliminate personal tags; developing systems that have the capabilities of adding a social tagging component are complicated and

Folksonomies and Subject Authorities Coexisting within Library Catalogs costly. Based on the literature reviewed, it is evident that there is a fair amount of overlap

between user generated folksonomies and LC Subject Headings. Current articles on the topic of integrating folksonomies and LC Subject Headings into library catalogs do not clearly state whether or not it would actually work. There simply is not enough research and experience to determine exactly how successful they would be. However, it can be determined by the literature that there is a significant overlap between the two, which leads to two conclusions: to some extent, subject headings are representative of what users are searching for but social tags could certainly augment them; with careful preparation and technology planning, and by developing a way of eliminating homonyms and personal terms, user tags certainly have a place in library catalogs. Further research will need to be conducted to evaluate effectiveness as systems capable of supporting social tagging develop.

Folksonomies and Subject Authorities Coexisting within Library Catalogs References

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Alder, M. (October, 2009). Transcending library catalogs: A comparative study of controlled terms in library of congress subject headings and user-generated tags in LibraryThing for transgender books. Journal of Web Librarianship, 3(4), 303-391. doi: 10.1080/19322900903341099 Delicious Discover yourself (2003). Retrieved from www.delicious.com Kwan, Y., & Lois, M. C. (2009). Linking folksonomy to Library of Congress subject headings: An exploratory study. Journal of Documentation, 65(6), 872-900 LibraryThing: Catalog your books online (2000). Retrieved from www.librarything.com Lu, C., Park, J.-R., & Hu, X. (2010). User tags versus expert-assigned subject terms: A comparison of LibraryThing tags and Library of Congress Subject Headings. Journal of Information Science, 36(6), 763-779 Marliese, T., Dana, M. C., & Cecilia, M. S. (2009). To tag or not to tag? Library Hi Tech, 27(3), 411-434. doi: 10.1108/07378830910988540 Spiteri, L. F. (September, 2007). The structure and form of folksonomy tags: The road to the public library catalog. Information Technology and Libraries, 26(3), 13-25