Tagging and Reviews

[Ross Singer]

Part of the problem with tags, reviews, etc. in library catalogs (and
similar systems) is: what's the motivation for the user to add them?

Tagging in services like delicious or Flickr (although much rarer in the
latter) makes sense from a pragmatic perspective.  It helps the user find
their own stuff.

The catalog isn't used like that, however (except in cases like bookbag
features -- even there the scale isn't going to be big enough to warrant
classification, though).  Why would I go through and *look* for things I've
read and give them tags?

I realize that that's *exactly* what people do at LibraryThing and
GoodReads, but the scale, and more importantly, the motivation (that is,
after all, why people signed up in the first place) is there.

Rather than "adding tagging", it would be a much better use of effort for
the library to build other services (reading groups, reading lists, etc.)
as the seed for social content creation and integrate that back into the
catalog.

-Ross.

On Tuesday, November 29, 2011, Patrice Chalon <patrice.chalon at gmail.com>
wrote:
> Hello,
>
> We made a test in 2008 (see below): users were invited to add a
> comment / rating / tag after returning a book.
>
> After the evaluation period,
> - comments and ratings stopped
> - provision of additional tags occurs very rarely
>
> One of the explanation was that our institution is small (50 people)
> and users were Web 1.0 (this has evolved since then) : they do prefer
> to talk about a book.
>
> Regarding tags, those readings were very inspiring
> - 17 Furner
> - 18 Blyberg
> - 27 Hayman & Lothian
>
> Hope it helps
>
> Patrice
>
> http://hdl.handle.net/10760/12136
>
>
> 2011/11/29 Kim Lehn <rajunask1 at owls.southernct.edu>:
>> Is there anyone who is involved with a library (as a patron or employee)
whose
>> catalog allows for patron reviews or tagging?
>> If so, how successful do think the patron input is? Or if not, what are
your
>> thoughts about this type of allowance for patrons?
>>
>> Thank you!
>> Kim Lehn
>> MLS Student
>> Southern Connecticut State University
>>
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>> 2011-11-28
>
>
>
> --
> ---------------
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> http://www.viadeo.com/fr/profile/patrice.chalon
>
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> 2011-11-29
>

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