Thing 12 post

Is tagging a useful way to organize your digital resources and why?

I think tagging has great potential to be helpful for personal and educational situations. I have many favorite websites at home and at school and I try to keep them organized, but it seems to be a losing battle. Generating useful tags will help people doing keyword searches because the idea is the same. I think that trying to be not too specific and not to general when creating a tag can be learned over time. I do like the hint of seeing what others use for their tags. You don't want to be so unique that no one else follows your thought process.

What do you think are the advantages and disadvantages?

As a librarian, it seems radical to let just anyone create tags...what about the official LOC subject headings? What about looking for 'cars' when the correct subject heading is 'automobiles'? What would Dewey say??? The advantage is that ordinary people can help organize the Internet and not wait for professionals. However, one disadvantage is that taggers could be ignorant or even deceitful, so I wonder if there is anything like an authority file. Or will bad tags self-extinguish since no one else will follow them? But anything that helps to organize the Internet is a good thing.

What is important to think about before assigning tags to bookmarks or other Internet content?

You want to be clear and concise and free from bias or judgement. You also want to be on the border between too general and too specific, but that point can be helped by assigning numerous tags. I wonder if there is a perfect number of tags per site, or a recommended number?