Trashy tags: problematic tags in LibraryThing

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to provide a quantitative analysis of the “messiness” of the social tags in folksonomies to see how useful they might be for general search and retrieval in library catalogs.

Design/methodology/approach

The study harvested tags for ten books from LibraryThing measuring characteristics which would hinder search and retrieval in library catalogs.

Findings

Because there are no rules governing the way people tag, folksonomies suffer from a certain degree of messiness and inconsistency. More than a third of this messiness is in the form of tag variations followed by tags containing non‐alphabetic characters. The other types of messiness measured were less significant, making tag variations the most prominent hindrance to search and retrieval.

Originality/value

The paper supplies quantitative support for giving users guidance for creating tags in a library catalog. However, libraries should remember that part of the attraction of social tagging is its open and self‐created environment and that too many rules and regulations may discourage participation.

Citation

Thomas, M., Caudle, D.M. and Schmitz, C. (2010), "Trashy tags: problematic tags in LibraryThing", New Library World, Vol. 111 No. 5/6, pp. 223-235. https://doi.org/10.1108/03074801011044098