User tags versus expert-assigned subject terms: A comparison of LibraryThing tags and Library of Congress Subject Headings

Abstract

Social tagging, as a recent approach for creating metadata, has caught the attention of library and information science researchers. Many researchers recommend incorporating social tagging into the library environment and combining folksonomies with formal classification. However, some researchers are concerned with the quality issues of social annotation because of its uncontrolled nature. In this study, we compare social tags created by users from the LibraryThing website with the subject terms assigned by experts according to the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH). The purpose of this study is to examine the difference and connections between social tags and expert-assigned subject terms and further explore the feasibility and obstacles of implementing social tagging in library systems. The results of our study show that it is possible to use social tags to improve the accessibility of library collections. However, the existence of non-subject-related tags may impede the application of social tagging in traditional library cataloguing systems. © 2010 The Author(s).