On 2/21/07, Jonathan Rochkind <rochkind_at_jhu.edu> wrote:
> But regardless of all this stuff, if we have a bunch of services that
> allow tagging of the same "things" (books), then it is certainly an
> interesting idea and worth pursuing to try and aggregate/share tag data
> amongst all these services. For sure. But even if our library catalog
> ends up full of imported tags (from librarything, perhaps), I still
> don't think many users will tag unless there is some personal utility to
> doing so. People don't tag just to help others out, mainly.
Ah, but I think people will tag to help others out as part of an
effort to build a social network. I think why this happens is a large
part of LibraryThing is to share information on books with friends and
to discover other people who have similar interests. This at least is
the behavior I notice with my friends in the non-librarian crowd.
They tag books also so their friends can find it. They use books they
have and tags they like to find other books they like. They're
motivate to tag in part to be seen as a contributing member of the
system.
I do thing LibraryThing is not conceptually far away from a social
setting, which is not the case of WorldCat. That is, when going to
LibraryThing I'm already in a mental mindset where I'm looking for the
next thing I want to read and be using my friends bookshelves to guide
me. However, I go to WorldCat because I need a specific book or find
books on a particular topic in libraries near me. People aren't used
to thinking about catalogs to find materials that their friends are
interested in. A large part of the problem is currently they need to
remember all the books their friend has talked about. I've yet to see
a catalog system where I'd want to invest any effort into adding my
own tags. Doing so on LibraryThing might get me in touch with other
Lovecraft fans for example. Doing so on WorldCat is likely to be
largely ignored.
So long story short I think lack of social critical mass is valid
criticism, but I'm not entirely sure how to build it. I think for
starters, WorldCat simply is too detached. I think a good system in a
more local catalog might lead to social usage. Or a resource that is
connected to the catalog (ie what does LibraryThing recommend based on
your past checkouts). Maybe some connection to a larger system as
well.
It does sound like it would be fun to experiment with though, doesn't it?
Jon Gorman
Received on Wed Feb 21 2007 - 15:58:35 EST