Some minor problems with folksonomy/tagging

I don’t feel prepared to weigh in on the whole folksonomy/tagging debate yet.  I do feel that I need to work more with tags in order to make a coherent judgement of their usefulness. However, I am having problems with a certain use of tags that I don’t think would be as bad under a system of controlled vocabulary.

I am not extremely active on my del.icio.us account, although I am starting to use it more in stages.  I used to put more in then I got out, but Quicksilver has a del.icio.us plugin which makes searching items very easy. I enjoy the social aspects of the site, and I love the fact that I can subscribe to tags.

My current subscriptions include:

*/libraries

*/library

Not subject out of the ordinary for my interests. However, every time I check my subscriptions page, about 1/3 are pages like this:

Ruby Graph Library save this
by lflemmer to ruby boost graph library … saved by 18 other people … 1 hour ago

There, you see, library.  Even the most basic set of subject headings would give me Libraries and Information Science—Libraries opposed to Computers—Software—Libraries.  And that is not say that sometimes when I click on a subject heading in the OPAC there are books that don’t really belong, but not to this quantity or degree of difference in subjects.

It seems to me that if tagging is going to work as a information retrieval tool it will have to overcome simple problems such as this.  I don’t see how any level of social input as well will help this semantic distinction, because both labels apply equally well in both cases.  It is not as if I am demanding programmers stop calling reusable snippets of code “libraries,” I just want to not see their links any more.

This is not a theoretical pronouncement, but the statement of an annoyance.  And if anyone has a good way to get all of the programming libraries off my page I am all ears.

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