[Web4lib] Libraries that support user tagging in OPAC?

[Jonathan Gorman]

On Fri, 10 Mar 2006, Drew, Bill wrote:

> There is one problem with tagging in OPACs.  What happens when you
> change the URL of the catalog?

Why would this have anything to do with the tagging?  Did I miss 
something?  I suppose some people might use a proxy-type system based off 
of the PURL, but that's certainly only one way to do it.  If you're 
mashing two systems together I'd probably go with bibliographic id or 
possibly ISBN.

Second, one of the great advantages of PURLs is to have system-independent 
urls.  You should have a mapping of the purls to your actual resource.

Ie old system

foo.com/beerrecipe.html actually points to foo.com/12341234jja14.html

in the new system
foo.com/beerrecipe.html would point to foo.com/plbeerr.html

in either case the user would have the same url.

I don't see what any of that has to do with tagging.  Here's a scenario I 
use on occasion to demonstrate how I envision tagging working in 
libraries.  The book "Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools" by Aho 
et al is more commonly known as the "Dragon Book" for those of us who have 
a computer science background.  "Design Patterns" is known as the "Gang of 
Four Book" or the abbreviation GoF.  These are terms that are not likely 
to be added by a cataloger, but a student might want to find out what they 
are.  If another patron has tagged the books "Dragon Book" and "Gang of 
Four" respectively, it increases the odds that someone searching for 
something like "compilers dragon book" will get the right answer and not a 
fantasy book.

Jon Gorman