Folksepticons and Taxotobots: can they coexist?

My five-year-old son has a new obsession almost every week. My favorite was the Star Wars phase when he loved R2-D2, pronouncing it “R-tootie-2". Recently, his obsession has turned to Transformers. We rented a DVD of these Robots in Disguise (or as he says, Robots in the Skies) for him to live off of during the recent holiday weekend. After he watched a few episodes by himself, my son came running joyously into the kitchen declaring, “Optimus Prime and Galvatron are friends!” Now, my son is one smart kid, but I just knew he got this wrong somehow. Optimus Prime and Galvatron (formerly Megatron) are sworn enemies. It wasn’t possible for them to be on the same side, and even less possible for them to become friends. But being the good mother I am, I sat down to replay the episode that had my son so overjoyed. To my astonishment, he was right! Optimus Prime and Galvatron join forces. They even shake hands. They become united by their common enemy: the megabot Unicron. Why, my fellow library students, am I telling you this story? I learned that day that if Autobots and Decepticons could join forces and fight for the greater good, other sworn enemies could unite, too. And if this can exist in the library world, amazing things could happen. Maybe libraries will do-away with fines and patrons will turn in their materials early. Maybe Internet grants from the government would say not to include filters. And maybe, just maybe, authorized subject headings can coexist with user-made tagging.

As discussed in other articles, authorized vocabularies, or taxonomies, and user-made vocabularies, or folksonomies, are both significant and relevant methods of cataloging. However, popular opinion would suggest that each school of thought is so different, so at-odds with the other, that it would be impossible for the two to unite. I am happy to say that in my research, I have found many examples of taxonomies and folksonomies working together in websites that allow users to find the information they seek.

In Smith’s (2008) article “Tagging: Emerging Trends”, he lists many examples of such efforts to coexist. Community-driven controlled vocabularies are one such example. LibraryThing employs this concept in it’s user-based cataloging (http://www.librarything.com/). In these cases, tag-equivalencies can be made and unmade by members. Once two tags are made equivalent, the more popular tag becomes the term that is used. Equivalencies can occur through spelling variations, such as “humor” and “humour”, or truncated variations, such as “world war 2” and “wwii” (Smith, 2008).

In the online store for handmade goods, Etsy, exists another fine example of user-made tags and controlled vocabulary; something called an “auto-manual folksonomy” (Smith, 2008, http://www.etsy.com/). When a merchant first sets up a page, in which he or she can sell their handmade items, the merchant can pick from a pre-defined list of describers to help potential customers find the items the merchant is selling. Users or shoppers on the site can then add their own tags to the merchandise. The result is a successful mix of both styles, with predetermined vocabulary acting as a heading, and user-based vocabularies acting as subheadings.

These are just two of the many examples already existing in our world. But there are also many theories that propose this alliance of taxonomies and folksonomies. Catalogers contributing to tagging, presenting controlled vocabularies in a recognizable format similar to current Internet trends, and taxonomy software that allows for tagging, are all existing schemes to combine taxonomies and folksonomies.

With the brainpower that exists in the library and information science community, I am excited and hopeful for what is to come. I look forward to the day when I see the Authority shake hands with the User, when their powers unite against the struggle that is the Catalog. As Sanders (2008) says, “Taxonomy vs. folksonomy is a false dichotomy.”


Wow, if this coexisting trend continues, maybe there’s hope for Berman and the LC after all.