The other day I was listening to a podcast (NPR: Technology) on the way home. The topic was tagging, which is a hot topic right now in the blogosphere (see ‘Tagging’ Lets Ordinary Users Organize the Internet.’) Some time ago I wrote about tagging with the basic reaction of “Duh, this is the same as library cataloging, or a very lite version thereof.” Now I’m not so sure of my judgment. I am also not so sure about the “goodness” or “badness” of this phenomenon. But there are some things that bother me about it. Maybe it bothers me mostly because of my library cataloging background. I am not aware of other library cataloging “experts” who have already weighed in on this phenomenon. If others out there who are active in the cataloging community have written anything about this, I’d like to hear about it.

Here are some (rather incoherent) thoughts for now:

One of the things that was discussed in the podcast mentioned above was the fact that the concept of “aboutness” was no longer narrowly defined or assigned by someone else, e.g. a librarian. With tagging, you can label something what it means to you, and another person can label the same object something else that means something to them. It allows each person to identify what is important to them. This was viewed as a very good thing. I’m not so sure. I’m not sure exactly how to articulate what bothers me about this except that it seems to assume, incorrectly, that librarians or, more specifically, catalogers, do not already have a system that does much the same thing, but in a different way, with an authority reference structure. I’m not arguing that the Library of Congress Subject Headings, e.g., works well at all. Or that library online catalog systems do a good job of demonstrating a reference structure to their users. All I’m saying is that libraries have developed, and used for years, a system that attempts to identify or tag objects in multiple ways to suit the perspectives of different users. Those who are so big on tagging as something new and different, I suspect, are largely unaware (or dismissive) of this fact.

Another part of this point about the freedom of users to identify something the way they see it that bothers me is that it seems predicated on general moral philosophy so prevalent today. That is, “what is good for me may not be good for you” or “each to his own” and tolerate all views. Noone is wrong, there is no absolute truth. Put another way, tolerance is the value that is most admired in today’s society. I may be spinning this way out of bounds, who knows. But I think that there is something to be said for an authoritative judgment of “aboutness” as a way to bring together all related works. (And I happen to believe in absolute truth.)

I’m wondering whether, as the tagging phenomenon continues on for a while longer, anyone will begin to think differently about its value. Does tagging an object with whatever terms you want really make it easier to find? Does tagging really help “cut through the clutter” or does it instead perpetuate and feed into a scattershot approach to categorization? I’m not sure what the answer will be.

I do know that tagging does help me to discover new ways of looking for or identifying an object, and that is helpful. And from a user perspective I much prefer tagging things in ways that I find relevant rather than having to refer to a standard list of tags, simply because it is easier for me and more meaningful.

I don’t know if anything I’ve noted down here makes sense, because I am not sure yet what to make of tagging in my own mind. I have played around with tagging in places like Flickr and LibraryThing and will continue to follow the development of tagging with interest.

[UPDATE: Just did a little searching around and found something that I had read before but had forgotten about, written by Gary Price @ SearchEngineWatch.com that directly relates to this very garbled attempt at writing down some of my thoughts about tagging. Gary does a better job at describing some of the negatives. I also recommend reading this posting from Clay Shirky's Writings About the Internet.]