I was watching the Social Tagging@Harvard, Part 1 video and thinking about categorizing and tagging and I was struck by how much power you have as a librarian in terms of placing items. When I was completing my Practicum in a school library for the SLCP part of this program I had to recatalog and categorize titles and it is a pretty heady feeling to know you are the one who decides -no this book is more about instruments than it is about craftsmanship so it will go in the 780's rather than in 680's etc. I think this is the same sort of power that gives rise to tagging. People want to have their thoughts on what an object is, or does, or says to be known and so they tag a picture, or book, etc. I is funny to me that so many people seem to be up in arms about the unregulated-ness of tagging but categorizing is and always has been a pretty subjective process. I think tagging is amazing and I think it IS the future.
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