Cataloging with user-generated tags supports a library’s commitment to accessibility. A cataloger’s main purpose is to provide enough description in a bibliographic record for a patron to access it and assess its content according to his or her needs. However, Rolla (2009) found that the way a patron approaches subjects is very different than the way a cataloger approaches subjects. Allowing patrons to add tags to existing library catalogs is a way to bridge this difference. West says in Webb & Nero (2009), “By using tags, the library users are given the choice to create their own ‘minicatalog’ of resources. They can create keywords they are personally familiar with and want to use”. Having a relevant, easy-to-use ‘minicatalog’ that utilizes current phraseology can eliminate the need for patrons to understand subject headings as librarians do. Sanders (2008) says, “Library systems have great ‘findability’ for trained searchers; the challenge now is how to make them work equally well for untrained ones.” Tagging can help create accessible, familiar paths to library materials that patrons will be able to find independently and perhaps more accurately than if they tackled taxonomized subject terms alone.
Using folksonomy tagging can also increase accessibility because it can add more description and meaning to a work. Patrons may be able to find more obscure meanings in a work because they have used it personally, versus a cataloger that might have had to make his or her best guess. Library of Congress subject headings often limit catalogers to assign headings based on what the work is. Tagging can help assign phrases based on what the work contains. As Rolla (2009) says, tagging allows for “abstract concepts or adjectives rather than just nouns”. An abstract concept could include issues that are community specific, such as a local referendum. Tagging can reach beyond authorized terms and allow citizens to identify materials about this referendum. These community-specific tags can aide greatly in the access of relevant and timely information to the community a library serves.
A large part of providing access, however, is also helping patrons assess the information they retrieve. Often, locating the information is only the first step. As Bell (2009) notes, library users “can challenge themselves to find the best words to describe the images, sounds, videos, and other media that they encounter online. They can also benefit from seeing the tags recommended by others. This ability to name and classify is an essential skill as we try to access, understand, and manage the proliferation of information that caroms at us all every day via the internet”. Information is only truly accessible when one can understand its true meaning.
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