The Job of Organizing

Organizing books and materials used to be in the domain of professionally trained catalogers and indexers. Now, through Web 2.0, it is in the hands of everyday "folk." What are the implications of this trend for librarians? Also, for additional food for thought, go to your Delicious site and examine your list of tags. In your opinion, are these tags more or less helpful than traditional subject headings?

The implication of the trend brought about by Web 2.0 for the librarian is huge.  With the use of folksonomies and social bookmarking, the control that librarians once had will be greatly challenged.  Patrons will come to the library with the expectation of searching for an item in the same way they have been searching and tagging on the internet.  This will pose some frustration for the patron if there hasn’t been some change in the setup of library catalogs.  Since library catalogs are traditionally set up using controlled vocabulary, patrons will likely not find what they are looking for, if they use their own vocabulary.  Librarians are going to need to make these adjustments to keep these patrons happy.  They will need to offer assistance to their patrons until there can be adjustments to embrace this new trend.

On the Delicious bookmarking site you use tags to mark your bookmarks in the way that is rememberable to you.  I can see this to be advantageous to recalling a favorite web page, but I think to keep it organized, you will need to keep the tags somewhat limited so that it is user friendly to you personally.  The use of Tag Bundles will help to keep it all organized.  I am new to Delicious so I may see advantages later on as I use it, that are not apparent to me at this time.