"oh what a tangled web we weave"...

Who knew social tagging is a great topic for psychologists?  When I was reading “Social Tagging as a Knowledge Organization and Resource Discovery Tool” by Hesham Allam, I felt like I was sitting in a psychology class. Honestly, I thought the information was very interesting, and compared to the other two articles for this week, this one was by far the most helpful to me.  It is clear that one of the main purposes of tagging is to get people who are looking for information—whatever form it may take--from point A to point B in a pretty timely and effective manner.  However, it stood out to me when Allam suggested that, “Some may argue that giving users the freedom to click on related words may distract them from getting to their search goal.”  I’m sure we have all been in a situation like this where as we are searching for one thing, we get off track and go deeper and deeper into the search.  Allam is correct when he says that having the opportunity to explore can get one off track; however, this could also bring forth information that would not have been discovered if the user stayed on track the whole time.  As future librarians, we want our patrons to be able to find their information efficiently, but ultimately, the user is in control and can weave their web however they choose.

I never thought of tags in terms of “survival of the fittest” until I read Alexis Wichowski’s article, “Survival of the fittest tag: Folksonomies, findability, and the evolution of information organization.”  Of course it is important to have proper tags so that internet users can find the information they want, but it is also just as important for those who are putting information on the internet to have people find their stuff as well.  I was left wondering when Wichowski suggested “educating users about ‘tag literacy’…and providing a form of ‘tag training.’”  I am curious as to how this would get done and how whether or not users would take it seriously.  I think people who are very interested in knowing all they can about the subject of tagging might be compelled to educate themselves, but I would question whether the “average Joe” would be so inclined to devote that much time to this subject especially if there are no “tagging police” to monitor it.  Would you partake in learning about tag literacy or participating in tag training?

Who has heard of an inverse tag cloud?  I never have until I read “Tag Gardening for Folksonomy Enrichment and Maintenance” by Isabella Peters and Katrin Weller.  I was kind of intrigued by the idea of having the rarely used tags in bigger fonts.  I know that tag clouds are a visually appealing way to show the tags and their popularity, and I think and inverse tag cloud would be useful to those who are trying to find access to documents and sources that are harder to find.