Tagging, Folksonomy & Co - Renaissance of Manual Indexing?

TL;DR

This paper reviews current trends in manual web indexing, emphasizing tagging as a popular form of collaborative indexing that blends traditional controlled vocabularies with user-generated annotations.

Contribution

It offers a revised typology of tagging systems, integrating user roles, hierarchical structures, and vocabulary control, and clarifies the relationship between tagging and traditional indexing.

Findings

Tagging is a prevalent form of manual indexing on the Web.

Controlled and free tagging systems are converging with feedback mechanisms.

A comprehensive typology of tagging systems is proposed.

Abstract

This paper gives an overview of current trends in manual indexing on the Web. Along with a general rise of user generated content there are more and more tagging systems that allow users to annotate digital resources with tags (keywords) and share their annotations with other users. Tagging is frequently seen in contrast to traditional knowledge organization systems or as something completely new. This paper shows that tagging should better be seen as a popular form of manual indexing on the Web. Difference between controlled and free indexing blurs with sufficient feedback mechanisms. A revised typology of tagging systems is presented that includes different user roles and knowledge organization systems with hierarchical relationships and vocabulary control. A detailed bibliography of current research in collaborative tagging is included.