Jonathan Rochkind wrote:
>Users are adding tags for their _own_ purposes, to keep track
>of their own stuff on flickr, or delicious, or librarything.
Karen Coyle wrote:
>Now, they could do this for their own personal use, or to show
>their libraries to other people ('social aspect'). (I suspect
>that most library thing users, myself included, are motivated
>in large part by a desire to show off their book collections
>publically).
I tag for purely social reasons - part of it to make my stuff available
for other users but a bigger part of it is to make connection with
others who have the same or similar interests so that I can find their
stuff. I don't tag to keep track of my own stuff - that never occurs to
me. I tag strictly for connection with others.
Applying this to the library world, if I were to be induced to tag
things I have read in a library catalog environment (speaking as a
library user, not a cataloger), it would be so I might have a means to
get recommendations from others who have overlapping reading interests
and for others to see what I'm reading. If users had the capability to
create "These are the books/videos/mp3s/CDs/websites I really like"
lists and trade them with others, but had to add a tag or two or few in
order to input each title, it might be incentive enough so long as there
was response (adding friends/contacts who shared lists of interest to
them). Joining groups/clubs is an added feature that would help. Of
course, I'm thinking about a public library setting (mystery book group,
best jam band CDs at EPL group, picture books my kids loved group, etc.)
Allen
Received on Wed Feb 21 2007 - 15:42:15 EST