Thing 13

Share your thoughts about tagging. Is tagging a useful way to organize your digital resources and why? What do you think are the advantages and disadvantages? What is important to think about before assigning tags to bookmarks or other Internet content?

I do think that tagging is - or at least can be - a very effective way to organize digital resources for myself. It also could be useful for a group as is outlined in the materials read for this Thing. However, the problem comes in with the dynamics of tagging.

As a Library Media Specialist I understand the importance of assigning appropriate 'subject headings' to a resource since I routinely do that when cataloging books. If a book is given the wrong subject heading or not enough subject headings to describe its content, the book may never be found and utilized effectively. The thing is, librarians don't make those subject headings up. We have an established lexicon that is used by ALL libraries ... well, at least for the most part. The bottom line is that a user can find information under the same subject heading in my library, the public library, a university library, etc. That sort of formal lexicon just doesn't exist for tagging in social bookmarking which can make it difficult for groups of people to locate pertinent information in someone else's Delicious bookmarks.

AND, after reading the "Thirteen Tips for Effective Tagging" there are some rather significant tagging punctuation and formatting issues to consider. The manner in which I format a tag - space or no space, dash, underscore, no caps?, phrase as one word, etc. - can dramatically impact whether anyone else can make sense of my bookmarked sites. To alleviate some of these potential problems, this suggestion from the 'Thirteen Tips .." article makes a lot of sense to me for more formal groups of people who want to share information:

Co-ordinate your efforts. If you're part of a professional community or community of practice, consider establishing a common set of standards for how to tag resources you want to share among yourselves. A wiki can help do the job.

While such coordination can still be, and should be, a very dynamic thing, I think that level of organization is needed to use social bookmarking effectively for a defined group. Otherwise, in my mind, social bookmarking is more an application for the individual. As such it certainly has tremendous potential to be effective and useful for me to keep my content organized.