I see a lot of tag-related anxiety myself in various places, esp. amongst catalogers. Not sure what drives it, except perhaps some of the early talk about tags replacing subject headings. And then there’s the Calhoun Report….

As for who will tag, how often, in what situations, etc. I have no idea. Those sorts of social questions are definitely outside my areas.

The point about LT tags being the same as subject headings may well be valid; for some libraries and at this point. But that is a fairly simple empirical issue to determine.

No doubt there is a lot of anecdote in this, esp. in my comments, many of which wandered fairly “off topic,” which is fine by me–since it was mainly me doing the wandering.

Even my main theses are mostly conjecture. I said pretty much the same but with different words. I cited no real empirical data and used at least one pure anecdote. As I said in the comments above, I am not against anecdote properly used.

I also spent much of my time arguing the opposite for “effect,” if you will. My point about me using the card catalog at 5 is pure anecdote, but I hope it makes one reconsider that “only librarians get subject headings” line. Me, I think there is value in realizing that we are more proficient in their use and just what does that mean for our patrons use of our systems.

Similarly, I can fund a nugget of insight or value in everything I criticized. I can only hope that others who may ascribe to these beliefs and assumptions can do the same.

There was a notable tag-related anxiety in the room: Namely, that none of a particular library’s patrons would tag, given the opportunity. One suggestion in response to this was the use of tag databases (like LibraryThing). A counterpoint raised by one of the catalogers in attendance was that, in their collection, LibraryThing tags seemed to basically be exactly the same as the cataloged subject information (that is, cut-and-pasted content). This was the context for the last point you quoted, which itself was a quick summary (and I am greatly indebted to the note-takers of the talk) of several different conversations happening at once.

I recognize your position with regard to Nicole’s original post, but I think the above situation has some (ahem) anecdotal value of its own.

After some sleep (and a more thorough perusal of what followed in the comments), I’ll try to come back. Very interesting read!

One never knows how to, or even whether they should, comment on a blog report of something they were not in attendance at. It can quickly bite you in the nether regions.

I can only hope that I was clear enough that I realized that was a danger, and made explicit that I was not in attendance, and that my comments were addressed at what I took from the report and not from the event itself.

Again, thanks!

That the session provoked further ongoing conversation outside Library Camp is profoundly gratifying – I just wish others who attended the session would jump in as well, so we could all learn.

I wonder if those who do (or would if they knew how or understood what it is) would prefer to do so in the entire catalog or by location (primarily)? Both options should be (easily) available, though.

Nonetheless, unless we have completely abandoned ourselves to the (imho, dumbass) memes of one search box and research equals a keyword or 2 dumped in that box, then give me my darn searches already. It simply cannot be that hard.

I also don’t get the difference between the drop-down options from the Gateway to those on the Quick Search page. Since supposedly “everyone” will use the default anyway, then what is the point of limiting what’s in the drop-down on the Gateway page. Put the damn Call # option in there already for the utter oddball such as myself who will use the drop-down.

When I end up with carpal tunnel from the 2 extra clicks I have to make every time I do my job I am coming after the knuckleheads who made that decision.

Purely anecdotal on my part I know, but I maintain that catalogers are probably the heaviest users of the catalog (as individuals, not in aggregate). Sure, “users” come first, but can we make a concession on our own behalf?

Yes, I have the client to work in, but I also need to use the OPAC and am SUPPOSED to check every record I add in the OPAC also. Call # is frequently the most convenient thing to use due to workflow reasons.

Clearly, librarians are all of one mind. Maybe if I could learn to think in “OPAC record display” then I wouldn’t even need to look them up.

===

I’m working hard on the little as possible school of slide design, but I’m not quite there yet. I have learned to spread it out across multiple slides, though.

I think the fact that you USE these services more than most librarians is exactly WHY you find issues with them and they don’t. I think that makes you a good librarian!

I would point out 1. most people don’t search by call number. That’s a working a reference desk in the math library statistical fact. 2. Everything recall related to MFHD in that library is sort of *&$%^$ed because of the way the data came into the database and 3. supporting an advanced user who DOES want to shelf browse and someone who does just want the one google search box is really difficult.

I think the problem you’re seeing is that libraries are hampered more than say, web aps, by really structured data and lots of it. And bureaucracy. Moving to more useful systems will always screw some of the data when you have 20 million records.

I will most definitely send you slides, although I come from the “as little on the slide as possible” school of presentation. It’s pricey to fly to Monterey, so I hear you!

Anyway … most of what I wrote in response to your comment was not directed at you. I just took off on a related tangent that was festering.

I guess I should clarify “tertiary interest.” I have so many freaking interests that things highly relevant and/or interesting to me easily get moved back to tertiary. Tagging is one of those. It is highly relevant to my interests but it is a very young research area so that makes finding good, solid research hard(er) to find. So besides the (temporarily) more important things occupying the foreground, the lack of material on the topic also moves it down the list.

Also, being a young area that means that lots of writing on the topics is/was on blogs. Not to say that there is no thoughtful work on blogs because there is but that much of it will be purely anecdotal based on a lot of unexplicated assumptions.

I definitely agree about the (at least seemingly) main gist of conference presentations on tagging. I go to quite a few, too, and I know you’ve been to more of them. That does seem to be THE question.

And, yes, I think many librarians have little view of our systems as users. Most of their interaction (in some cases, all) is as the intermediary or the constructor/maintainer of the system so that whenever they are using it they are evaluating it from one of those perspectives.

In many way (perhaps makes me a “bad” librarian), most of my interaction with our systems (except much of my cataloging) is as a user. I use the hell out of some of our systems, and they drive me nuts!

Even as a cataloger–or esp. as a cataloger–using the online catalog to check a record I have just input is a freakin’ nightmare.

Back to being a user, we have a library browser toolbar here (as you probably know). I have it installed in Firefox on the PC but not the Mac (small screen real estate). But I rarely use it. There are some drop-downs to choose things like the Lib Gateway or Hours or Dept. Libs or Reserves, etc. and Catalog or Databases or Journals, etc.

But there is no way to select the sort of search you want to run within a “catalog.” I’m guessing the default catalog search is a keyword search. Maybe these are the default searches that most of our patrons run, but I’d really, really like to see some serious empirical data for these decisions. And I’d love to get my hands on the damn relevance ranking algorithms and damn the committee who “agreed” to them. It drives me insane when I drop in a definite title–especially a short one with only meaningful “keywords” in it–and get 1000s of freakin’ hits for a known item, which is usually nowhere near the top. For Christ’s sake! How much more relevant can a two- or three-word phrase be than to match a title exactly?

Please, people. Show me the quality evidence that proves I’m a weirdo. I know I’m weird. But I simply cannot imagine how a direct match on a title with only meaningful keywords in it does not bring that to the #1 position in a list.

I seriously do not think anyone will ever be able to explain the sense of that to me. Certainly they could explain the algorithm and I would understand why it fails to do what I expect in this case. But I doubt they will be able to rationalize (to me) the reason it is coded that way.

Now, I really do not mean to disparage the librarians who make these sorts of decisions. I really don’t, even if I often curse them under my breath.

But research–if it can be believed and seeing as it comes from many disciplines I think maybe we can–show that most users will make the least effort. So if the default is a keyword anywhere search then, clearly, analyzing your search logs will show that users use KW searches primarily.

Change that default and some interesting things happen. Change your displays and search capabilities and even “stranger” things happen as some of the early reports coming out of catalogs powered by Endeca are showing.

And–perhaps it’s Voyagers problem–but why the heck can I not limit by library, or anything else, on the Quick Search page if I want to search by Call Number? Is it that dang odd that I might want to shelf browse a specific location?

And, yes, there are ways around that. I know. But isn’t all the rage nowadays to not make the user think? Don’t make me game the system to make it do something it ought to. I’m already thinking about how to get at what I want. I shouldn’t be forced to think of another way of doing it.

I also know I can go to the Advanced Search and implement my limit and then search by Classification. [Notice the change from Call Number to Classification. ??] But run one of those (without any limits, especially, as an exercise) and have a look at the results.

It is taking the class no. from both the 082 in the Bib and from the MFHD and then ordering them alphabetically! Alphabetically. WTF? Who dreams this crap up? So since the call no. is being pulled from the 082 and it may well not be the assigned call no. you get something like the following on a search for 401.9 (remember, titles are alpha):

401.9 OC3a
401.9 H838A
616.855 L26
401.9 C12A
401.9 M23A
400 J26
…

I cannot even begin to fathom how this can even begin to be considered useful. I can at least sort of try to understand the KW anywhere thing, but this? Completely baffling!

I’m glad it’s pulling the records with the Class no. on the bib but shouldn’t those be ranked at the end of the list of items actually classed in 401.9? And what is with the alpha for Christ’s sake.

So to achieve my desire to “shelf browse” I am forced to otherwise retrieve an item with that number and then click the call no. to get into the shelf browse function. I truly do not get it.

And, since it works this way, I have no way that I can discover of shelf browsing a specific library. Because if I use the Quick Search with a library limit, find my item and then click on the Call # to get shelf browse I am dumped into the full catalog. My limit has been removed.

Aaarrrgh!

By the way, I can fully defend wanting to do this search as a user, but esp. as a cataloger, who, by the way, is a seriously heavy user of the catalog. You know, just in case anyone forgot to consider that.

Again, Jenny, most not in direct response to you.

Hey now! If I had the money I’d definitely be at that “totally anecdotal conference presentation” of yours!! Of course, I might have to ask a question at the end about it’s being based only on anecdote. OK, teasing on that one. Seriously, though, I am sorry I’m going to miss it. You’ll be awesome!