Folksonomies

Part of what I find most interesting about folksonomies is the way that they are an organic version of the controlled vocabularies that we catalogers use on a regular basis. They are far more decentralized, and don't have authoritative bodies ensuring quality control, like the Library of Congress or the Getty, but they are also much more flexible and open to evolution. Anyone who has seen a heading from LC and thought, that's not quite right, knows that getting the heading changed is a challenge. I work at a NACO contributing institution, and it's still an enormous pain to try to get corrections made. Folksonomies are generally much easier to alter and are also generally not held captive by groups of control freaks, I mean, catalogers.

Unfortunately, the lack of oversight also means that there is a serious lack of quality control. Spelling errors abound, and there are variations on many words, with singulars and plurals each being employed - a problem that is solved definitively in the name authority rules for various authorized vocabularies. The tags that people use for folksonomies can also be highly individualized, which might contribute to a single user's experience, but doesn't necessarily help other users who might have the same interests.

I think that as a cataloger I struggle with the idea of folksonomies more than others might. I like controlled vocabulary, because even if it doesn't use plain language, or the words that I would choose, there is a consistency across the board. I recognize, though, that controlled vocabularies are not terribly helpful for the average reader, who probably doesn't even know they exist. This is my way of saying that I'm not entirely sure how I feel about folksonomies.