Tagging – Chaos or Personalized Order?

In my 30 years at the Spokane Falls Library I have had conversations with students who did not like the way the subjects were organized in the Dewey Decimal System and wanted to create their own version. At the time I thought only a crazy person would want to do this. I was so wrong. The current hot topic is tagging. Tagging allows each person to use his own terms to mark websites for later retrieval. My knee jerk reaction was one of horror – I could see nothing but anarchy and chaos ahead.

Then I ran across this clear, graphically illustrated defense of tagging as opposed to controlled vocabulary classification schemes for the digital environment. It makes a great case for library schemes being well designed for a physical book on a shelf, but wholly inadequate for the wild and wooly web:
Ontology is Overrated: Categories, Links, and Tags

So, while I was in the middle of reading this article a patron came up to the desk. He was just learning about electronic file folders and how to organize them and he had a problem. He did not want his folders in alphabetical order and couldn’t understand why Microsoft WORD wouldn’t let him organize them his own way. This time my reaction was different. Yes, why did the folders have to be in alphabetical order? Obviously the wave of the future is that patrons are going to expect lots of control over how access to information is organized – and they will get it.

Related links:

‘Tagging’ helps unclutter data


Tags: The real time web organized by you

Paraskevidekatriaphobia!

Friday the 13th read the origins of this unlucky day. -bro

VOTE Tuesday FREE PIZZA

If you vote you get FREE PIZZA! Want to have a little bit of control over what goes on at SFCC? Student Government Electionsare happening Tuesday May 10th. Be sure to participate in this election. It will give you practice for the real world. Remember the student government has the power to allocate hundreds of thousands of dollars. Choose wisely. -bro

Far Out!

Mr. Library User came in the other night and asked me to help him find zip codes online.

"OK- here they are."- says me. "NO! The site must not require addresses, the site must list zip codes by city." "Which city?" "I don't know which city, I can't tell you the city, any city." "I need a zip code directory with codes for cities that I don't know the names or locations of."

I am puzzled beyond belief. :-&

HOLY MOLY! Those MIT students must have LOADS of spare brain power. Here it is a zip code directory for those of you with random 5 digit numbers running through your heads. ZIPDECODE Type in random 5 digit numbers & EUREKA! COOL!! jlw

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Check out the DVD Lost Boys of Sudan

Spokane has become home to refugees from Southeast Asia, Central America, Russia and its neighbors, and now from Africa. Many of our new residents are from the Sudan. Find out what it was like to be caught up in and then flee a terrible civil war, finally settling in a land and society utterly unlike their own.

Check out the DVD The Lost Boys of Sudan, the story of two boys of the Dinka tribe who end up in Texas. It is out on the shelves with the nonfiction books about other cultures: 305.8927 LOST. All you need is your library card and you can check it out for a week.

Another film on young people from the Sudan who settled in Seattle is available for viewing in the library or for classroom use. Go to the Media Distribution office on the lower level for this one:

A Great Wonder: Lost Children of Sudan Resettling in America 61 min 2004 MV 13341



–DL

Bookstore tourism

A hearty librarians' salute to Larry A. Portzline. Larry, an erstwhile community college writing instructor in Pennsylvania, now organizes tours of independent bookstores for area bibliophiles.

Larry has self-published a how-to guide called Bookstore Tourism: The Book Addict's Guide to Planning & Promoting Bookstore Road Trips for Bibliophiles and Other Bookshop Junkies. According to Larry, "These people are crazy about bookstores." You can also check out Larry's bookstore-tourism blog on his Web site (http://www.bookstoretourism.com).

Maybe we can interest him in Auntie's . . . . –GS