Tagging Can Be Socially Redeeming

One of the progenitors of hip hop, the great DJ Afrika Bambaataa, laid out the four elements (five if you count beat-boxing) of hip hop culture: DJing, MCing, b-boying (I love you if you actually do some research into b-boying), and graffiti, also known as "tagging." 

Sure, I'm playing on a homophone/homograph/homonym, but let me set up the parallel between graffiti tagging and social tagging on the Web. Tagging was regarded in the 1980s as vandalism. Despite there being extremely beautiful, expressive, and aesthetically attractive instances of tagging, it was still condemned by community leaders. This very rejection and refusal to grant these artists some space only led to further vandalism.

This antediluvian viewpoint is misplaced in modern society. Some truly forward-thinking artists went out and rented space in cities, gathered a crew of taggers, and showed that this art form (an ancient art form dating back to at least ancient Rome and probably much earlier), once viewed as degenerative, could actually beautify a space if given the chance.

So it was with great confusion that I read in one of my LIS books today that social tagging's utility is a subject of debate. I do credit the book for elaborating the potential uses of social tagging in metadata schemes, but I really have to question why they question the utility? 

Now, I'll be the first to admit I wince at the pure craziness that will ensue if/when library books are being tagged en masse by the public, not to mention librarians. Trust me, I've heard some weird tags for things over the past few weeks. Yikes. But aren't we afraid of every new and powerful idea? It only takes the human mind one second to go from, "That sounds cool." to, "The machines will ruin our lives!" The idea of "user-contributed" information is pretty old hat by now, but does anyone remember the pretentious ridicule that professors hurled at Wikipedia? The idea that people, and not experts at institutions, could contribute to knowledge! Inconceivable!

I'll relate a personal example of tagging that happened tonight. Let me preface this by admitting I have a special place in Hades mapped out in Dante fashion (right before the ninth circle, Cocytus) that would house the creators of chain e-mails. I can't think of some poetic justice right now -- perhaps setting a tick on him, then bringing 10 of the tick's friends, and 10 of his friends, and so on. And yet, as I saw one of my friends on Facebook complete a silly "Top 15 Albums in 15 Minutes," because he tagged me in the post, I couldn't help but participate. I would even call it, dare I say, fun.

So, what was really all that different between a chain e-mail and this Facebook exercise? Well, besides not occurring during my morning, when every thing not deadly urgent in my e-mail inbox makes me angry? One crucial difference: (instant) communication. Every one was commenting on each others' picks. Why we should have put an album someone else had put down. Albums we would have picked if we had more slots. Some of us started talking about music taste in general, and a large discussion was being had across many different profiles. Communication and information while being socially involved... isn't this what libraries are trying to facilitate? 

The problems might be there, but the utility of social tagging is real and cannot be doubted. If institutions don't get in on this now, they will have left yet another big idea to Facebook or Google to pioneer. Tagging, even if it leads to a dead end in libraries, could ultimately branch out to some innovation we've always wanted when it comes to classification discrepancies between member and information professional.