Wisdom in the Masses

Now that cataloging is in the hands of everyman, I think the web is going to become easier to navigate. I definitely liked the experience of creating my own tags for websites in Delicious. Chances are, there are people out there just like me who are looking for the same kind of information. This type of “bottom up” classification is very helpful. When a website is created, the outlook of the creator is often very different from that of a user. This way, the web creators can see exactly what someone was looking for when they accessed their site. It further expands the two-way communication that is the hallmark of Web 2.0.

The implications for librarians are great, but also very exciting and promising. I can imagine a library website where users can create their own tags for books, as I understand some libraries are already doing. Everyone can find out which books were helpful for what types of research. These tags would most likely go into much more detail than the ones assigned by the Library of Congress. Searching a library’s ILS will generate much more accurate results and make the library much more useful to the patron. Websites like Shelfari already allow people to share their own libraries and their opinions of books. Pairing opinions and reviews with an ILS will further enhance a patron’s searching ability. I look forward to Catalog 2.0. It is a ways away in my mentor’s library, but I’m willing to wait.