nimblelibrarian.files.wordpress.com€¦  · Web viewword clouds based on your collection tags (see screen shot 1.10), cover viewing only (see screen shot figure 1.9). Along with

Whitni WatkinsLibr202 Sec.10At your Leisure Exercise #2

Part 1Mathes describes folksonomy as being a compromised set of terms in a flat name space.

A flat name space means there is no hierarchy or specified relationship between the terms. In

folksonomy there are often auto-generated tags for different items based most often on the URL

of that item. As Mathes says, folksonomy is “simply a set of terms that a group of users tagged

content with” (Mathes, 2004, p.4). Folksonomy does not use a controlled vocabulary but instead

the vocabulary is developed from the users’ choice of words for description.

Folksonomies differ from professionalized forms of description because they are more

like categorization than classification. A professionalized form of description is hierarchical and

has relationship forming that is clear. (Mathes, 2004, p.5) Where as folksonomies are on a flat

name space that encompasses the vocabulary used by the users and there is no relationship or

hierarchy between terms.

Folksonomies have a few drawbacks with description, because there is no controlled

vocabulary the tags can become ambiguous as users use the same tag in different ways, for

example the tag “glasses” will bring up multiple titles that can relate from eye glasses to sun

glasses to water glasses. Another drawback would be the inability to have multiple word tags,

therefore there are times where distinct ideas are muddled into one single tag. (Mathes, 2004)

However even with these drawbacks there are benefits to folksonomies, hence for their

popularity and continuing existence. One of the benefits is what Mathes calls serendipity. Having

no controlled vocabulary and no relation between terms allows one to find something

unexpectedly. Second benefit is what Mathes calls desire lines, “the foot-worn paths that

sometimes appear in a landscape over time.” (Mathes, 2004, p.7) Folksonomies use web 2.0 to

its potential by creating a controlled vocabulary from the most common tags. Along with the

technical benefits are the sheer fact of time, effort and money that it takes to become involved

and effectively use a folksonomy program. You can be set up and add a handful of items within

minutes; some folksonomies even offer mobile options allowing one to upload and tag directly

from the comfort of the dinner date they may be on, I never said anything about folksonomies

teaching etiquette to members. As Mathes quotes Butterfield, “Free typing loose associations is

just a lot easier than making a decision about the degree of match to a pre-defined category.”

(Mathes, 2004; Butterfield, 2004) We live in an era where faster and easier is better,

folksonomies bring this to the desktop.

References:

Mathes, A. (2004). Folksonomies – Cooperative Classification and Communication Through

Shared Metadata. Retrieved from http://www.adammathes.com/academic/computer-mediated-

communication/folksonomies.html

Part 5

Library Thing: a folksonomy

I chose to investigate the folksonomy Library Thing. It is a system created for users to

help them easily catalog their books and search others collections. It has the main bullets of a

folksonomy including free form tagging, synonym confusion, user formed vocabulary, and

immediate results. However, Library Thing I feel brings more order to the chaos of a folksonomy

than others like Flickr, Tumblr or Del.icio.us.

Becoming a contributor to Library Thing is very simple. First, you sign up to be a

member and create yourself a profile and you can choose to make your collection private or

public and you can even decide to accept recommendations from other members. Along with

recommendations the free form vocabulary allows for a better browsing experience. Once you

have set up your profile you can begin adding items to your database. Adding books to your

database in Library Thing is very similar to doing a Z39.50 record fetch. The screen shot figure

1.1 shows the different search options when adding a book. First, you look it up, by Title, Author

or ISBN and then you fill out the tags you want to add. The tagging in Library Thing is precisely

how Mathes described folksonomies, having no controlled vocabulary and being strictly based

on the chosen tag vocabulary of the users. Since Library Thing does not have a strict controlled

vocabulary searches can still be serendipitous (see screen shot figure 1.7). I enjoy the features of

Library Thing because it gives you the option to have a controlled and less chaotic search or one

that can bring beauties you may have never found in a professionalized form.

When you add books to your database, referred to by Library Thing as a collection you

can search different libraries for the book record information is a very loose interpretation of

copy cataloguing. In the particular search above I search by ISBN in the Library of Congress, the

screen shot figure 1.2 depicts that there wasn’t a record within that specific library. Library

Thing provides for you over 700 different sources to search from including both academic and

public libraries and businesses like Amazon and OverCat. I redid the search again by ISBN

number, as I found it to bring the most relevant results. This time I searched instead with

Amazon and retrieved the correct book. In the right side column in the screen shot figure 1.3

shows the results of the search in Amazon, this source retrieved only one result. Once you have

matched the book at hand with the result you can click on the result and it will add it to your

collection.

Library Thing provides a feature to search for multiple ISBNs at one time by importing

an excel file. In relation to Mathes’ article I feel that Library Thing as a folksonomy fits except

Library Thing is closer to classification than Mathes’ puts them to be. When you search for terms

in library thing it separates them by authors, titles, tags, series, and classification making it a

little more specific in the search terms (see screen shot figure 1.4). One of the reasons Library

Thing is a typical folksonomy as Mathes describes is the fact that the description given to the

book is much more specific than one in per se Flikr. As shown in screen shot figure 1.5 when

you edit a book you can enter information such as publication date, author(s), title, series,

edition, notes, subjects, call numbers, as well as a personal rating and review of the book. Being

that there were so fields to add information I also performed an OCLC search to make sure I had

the exact record information, again performing a very lose interpretation of copy cataloguing

(see screen shot figure 1.6).

I chose Library Thing as my folksonomy because I wanted a simple, aesthetically

pleasing and inexpensive way to catalog my books while also getting recommendations from

others based on my collection or on my own curiosity. Library Thing provides codes for widgets,

word clouds based on your collection tags (see screen shot 1.10), cover viewing only (see screen

shot figure 1.9). Along with features pertaining to the sites look, they also have extensions and

applications for Twitter, Facebook, and a Library Thing mobile application. Library Thing is free

up until you have 200 books in your database then you can buy a lifetime membership for $25 or

a yearly membership for $10, once you upgrade your membership you can add as many books as

you would like. You can also have multiple databases to add too, for example you can have

different genres of books, or pleasure reading books versus textbooks.

The benefits that Mathes talked about were definitely apparent in Library Thing searches

as most of the vocabulary is user generated, aside from the book information provides by the

Z39.50 searches and my extra OCLC search. As a student aiming to achieve Professional

Librarianship, I definitely conducted a more thorough description than your average book

fanatic, so my description use allowed Library Thing to lean more closely towards classification

than categorization. Aside from my particularity of adding detailed and correct descriptions,

Library Thing has the benefit of bring immediate results. Once you add a book, you can view

how many other members have that particular book in their collection as well as its popularity

within the folksonomy and any ratings or forums brought up about the book (see screen shot

figure 1.8). Library Thing is most definitely a folksonomy, however it is not the folksonomy that

I read from Mathes, I think he would be more keen to a Library Thing as it has more benefits

than the folksonomies he described.

Figures

Figure 1.1

Figure 1.2

Figure 1.3

Figure 1.4

Figure 1.5

Figure 1.6

Figure 1.7

Figure 1.8

Figure 1.9

Figure 1.10