You have been tagged

I was really interested reading Clay Shirky's piece about tagging and classification as I'll be learning classification on my LIS Masters next year and I so it was interesting reading a discussion about it.

Firstly I would say tagging (in the Shirky sense, used on Flickr) is something I feel is definitely useful - the internet is anarchic and user defined - tags reflect this. And like the internet tagging can be both brilliant and awful because of this anarchy. Looking at the tag cloud on Flickr for example

it's easy to see what people like taking photos of: weddings, parties and beaches, often using Nikon or Canon cameras. The tags become more useful when searching - a picture taken with a Canon camera of a wedding held on the beach for example would be the ultimate 'average' Flickr photo!

I don't quite see why Shirky is so determined to put this kind of organic tagging in opposition to more traditional library classification systems however - they are both categorising things but in different ways, and for different purposes. Library classification systems for physical libraries are there to make searching and
browsing easier - just as tags do on the internet. I would argue both types of classification - rigid and fluid - have their place.

I had flashbacks to the literary theory module in my degree and semiotics - words and definitions are difficult to pin down - different words can have different connotations to different people. Tagging reflects this:  if you're looking for something not recognised in more structured systems then a user defined tag allows flexibility. This multitude of meaning can also be incredibly problematic and frustrating if you want to find something specific quickly within a structure - this is why classification systems developed! I don't see any reason why the two approaches can't co-exist in organising information. Just like I feel I can quote Wikipedia and defend traditional classification systems!