Simon Spero
From Social Software Showcase
The Folksonomy Theorem
Cosmos, Taxis, and the Future of Bibliographic Control
An emergency meeting of the International league of philosophers has issued the following statement:
"Some things are miscellaneous.2 Some things aren't.3 Beware of zebra crossings.4"
Folksonomies need taxonomies to give them order, Taxonomies need folksonomies to give them life; but for taxonomies to receive this life, they must first be made ready.
The Library of Congress Subject Headings are rich in promise, but exist, archeopterex-like, caught in transition between dictionary and thesaurus.
The future of bibliographic control can only be social, her authorities moral. Tens of thousands of orphan subject headings cry out for adoption. Hundreds of names, banished from name files, merely because they belong to the feline, or fictitious.
"It is high time to tackle the subject headings" [1]. Will you make a difference?
Bibliography
- Sidney L. Jackson, Requirements Study for Future Catalogs. Progress Report No. 2, University of Chicago Library School, 1968.
quoted in Sanford Berman, Prejudices and Antipathies (Scarecrow Press, 1971) - David Weinberger. Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder (Times Books, May 2007).
- Elaine Peterson. Beneath the metadata: Some philosophical problems with folksonomy (D-Lib Magazine, 12(11), 2006.)
