The 21st century library patrons need more efficient search results when using a catalog system. They need relevant search results. They need to be able to do more detailed, complex searches. These were often difficult to achieve with traditional, hierarchical catalog systems. Gone are the days of these hierarchical classification systems…or almost. Now, we need more of an “everyman” effort to categorize and organize our data. Another term for this is “folksonomy”. Regular folks are creating their own categories and tagging their digital objects like websites, photos, and many other data types to make it more useful for them to retrieve for later use. Not only does the individual benefit from this, but potentially, so does the rest of the world. This trend definitely affects the libraries. The librarian will have less control over the categorizing of such data and information since much of the information out there is digital and is currently being created and tagged by regular folks. This is not necessarily a bad thing, however. There is no way all the information “out there” could possibly be organized by any group of individuals. It really will take the “everyman” to do it; it will take all of us. With the trend going towards folksonomies, we as librarians and taggers will need to investigate and embrace new, more efficient ways of organizing information so we are all able to use these pieces of data to their fullest potential.
The 21st century librarian needs to be very familiar with the newest technologies so they can train the patrons when they need help with these new technologies. They also need to maintain the libraries’ websites so they are also up to date on the latest applications & webtools that will enhance the website and the users’ experience of it. There are definite advantages and disadvantages of both the old school hierarchical taxonomy and the new “folksonomy”. The good news for librarians is, that the patrons are empowering themselves to tag their information as it makes sense to them. This makes it useful to many others as well. This will be a more efficient use of everyone’s time. The more tags that are added to an item, the more reliable the tags are. With all of this collective effort going into this cataloging of information, I would hope that libraries and librarians alike, are grateful for the help and definite relevancy of the cataloging categories of digital information. The patrons dictate what they need from the libraries and hopefully, the libraries will continues to be able to provide it. They can continue to stay up with the technological needs of the patrons by tagging RSS feeds, blogs, recommended web resources and the like. With any advantages the old system of cataloging had, it just is not a viable option for the future of our libraries and our very digitally dependent world.
Bringing it home to my own experience with categorizing, organizing, and cataloging of information, I feel my own delicious bookmarks’ tags are more relevant to me than traditional subject headings would have been. I can pick out the information I want to highlight and tag it in that way and use all the other tools the site might offer like tag clouds, etc. It is much more useful to take advantage of other’s tag thought on the same websites than to be forced into some formal, broader category. I am sticking with the folksonomy way.
