New Conference Paper: Folksonomies as Subject Access – a Survey of Implementing Tagging in Library Online Catalogs and Discovery Layers

The following paper was presented on Saturday (August 18th) at the “Beyond Libraries-Subject Metadata in the Digital Environment and Semantic Web”  IFLA post-conference in Tallinn, Estonia.

Title

Folksonomies as Subject Access – a Survey of Implementing Tagging in Library Online Catalogs and Discovery Layers

Authors

Yan Yi Lee
Systems Librarian, Wagner College
Sharon Q. Yang
Associate Professor/Systems Librarian, Rider University

Source

Beyond Libraries-Subject Metadata in the Digital Environment and Semantic Web
Post-Conference Web Site

Abstract

This paper describes a survey on how system vendors and libraries handled tagging in OPACs and discovery layers. Tags are user added subject metadata, also called folksonomies. This survey also investigated user behavior when they face the possibility to tag. The findings indicate that legacy/classic systems have no tagging capability. About 47% of the discovery tools provide tagging function. About 49% of the libraries that have a system with tagging capability haveturned the tagging function on in their OPACs and discovery tools. Only 40% of the libraries that turned tagging on actually utilized user added subject metadata as access point to collections.Academic library users are less active in tagging than public library users

The paper includes charts that look at how OPACs and discovery tools from several vendors handle folksonomies.
Direct to Full Text Paper (MS Word)
Folksonomies as Subject Access – A Survey of Tagging in Library Online Catalogs and Discovery Layers

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