Thoughts at large

I've been meaning to post about copies of articles on all things 2.0 (Web 2.0, Library 2.0, Learning 2.0, etc.) that have been on my work desk during the past year, waiting to be read and filed. SJPL's Library 2.0 launch allows me the time to review them.

The first is from way back in December, 2005, titled "The Hive Mind: Folksonomies and User-Based Tagging," by Ellyssa Kroski, posted at http://infotangle.blogsome.com/. It starts: There is a revolution happening on the Internet that is alive and building momentum with each passing tag. With the advent of social software and Web 2.0, we usher in a new era of Internet order. One in which the user had the power to effect their own online experience, and contyribute to others'....The wisdom of crowds, the hive mind, and the collective intelligence are doing what heretofore only expert catalogers, information architects and website authors have done. They are categorizing and organizing the Internet and determining the user experience, and it's working.

The article goes on to address del.icio.us, Flickr, 43 Things, and Technorati. It states: As users continue to add tags, a grassroots organizational scheme begins to emerge which has been dubbed by information architect Thomas Vander Wal, to be a "folksonomy." Folksonomies are described as being inclusive, current, and non-binary, and as offering discovery. They're also democratic, self-moderating, follow "desire lines," offer insight into user behavior, engender community, offer a low cost alternative, and offer usability. Furthermore, Resistance is Futile.

Flaws of folksonomies are that they have no synonym control, have a lack of precision, lack hierarchy, have a "basic level" problem, have a lack of recall, and are susceptible to "gaming."

Since this article was posted as a blog, the many comments on it are nearly as interesting as the original post itself.

The 2nd article is "Library 2.0" by Michael E. Casy and Laura C. Savastinuk, published in Library Journal, September 1, 2006. If anyone is reading my blog, you may have already seen this clear overview of Library 2.0. It also includes useful 2.0 resource links, including other articles (one back to Otober, 2004) and blogs.

The 3rd article is "Tagging," by Johnathan Rochkind, posted 7/10/2006, at http://techessence.info/tagging/.

The 4th article is "Tagging Play: Forget Dewey and His Decimals, Internet Users are Revolutionizing the Way We Classify Information - and Make Sense of It" by Lee Rainie, Director, Pew Internet and American Life Project, posted on January 31, 2007, at http://pewresearch.org/pubs/402/tagging-play. I highly recommend this one.

And now that I've spent too much time on article reviews, I've run out of time to finish this week's assignments. I'll have to double-up on them upon returning from vacation in a week.