Exploitation of folksonomies in subject analysis

• Published in: Library & information science research Vol. 32; no. 3; pp. 192 - 202
• Main Authors: Kakali, Constantia, Papatheodorou, Christos
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Amsterdam Elsevier Inc 01.07.2010; Elsevier
• Subjects: Content analysis; Exact sciences and technology; Indexing. Classification. Abstracting; Indexing. Classification. Abstracting. Syntheses; Information and communication sciences; Information and document structure and analysis; Information processing and retrieval; Information science. Documentation; Sciences and techniques of general use; Social networks; Subject indexing; Tagging; University libraries; Tagging; Social network; Knowledge organization; Subject access; Folksonomy; Indexing
• ISSN: 0740-8188; 1873-1848
• DOI: 10.1016/j.lisr.2010.04.001

Social tagging is one of the most popular of social media applications and has attracted the interest of a number of libraries and museums, which have developed services that facilitate user-community collaboration. This paper presents a methodology for the exploitation of social tagging in subject indexing, and explores that method through a case study in an academic library setting. The findings reveal the characteristics of users' tagging behavior, which mainly enhances the subject description of documents. The results suggest the articulation of alternative policies concerning knowledge organization schemes, technological infrastructures, and information services.