Social indexing at Stockholm public library

Harriet AagaardLooking at the Past and Preparing for the Future

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Search from GoogleSearch for ”Flyga drake recension” (review)

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Search from GoogleSearch for ”Flyga drake recension” (review)

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Biblioteket.se and tagging

• Betaversion 2007-02-15. Available only for staff (”librarians”)

• 2008-02-15 tagging is open for all patrons

• Login to tag. – 1st time: create alias & agree to rules

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Tags

Unique tags• 2006 -2007 1221• 2008 602• 2009 – June, 15 316• Total no. tags 2139

• Umeå district library 4300• Ann Arbor district library 22000

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Usage of unique tagsUsage of unique tags

1399 tags are only used once

Total number of unique tags: 2139Total number of tagging: 5325The most popular tag has been used 145 times

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Ann Arbor district library

• Possible to tag for 2 1/2 years • 22000 unique tags

• Used on 11000 titles

• Set by 537 different users

• Around 5 % of the records have tags

• Less than 1 % of the users have set tags

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Ann Arbor district library

• The possibility to tag has been there for 2 1/2 years.

• 22000 unique tags

• Used on 11000 titles

• Set by 537 different users

• Around 5 % of the records have tags

• less than 1 % of the users have set tags

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Questions

• Which tags were used?

• Who sets tags?

• Why do users set tags?

• Do users set different tags from librarians?

• Compare tags to subject headings

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Method

• Too little information and not easy to get• Tags, date & time, number of use

• Categorized all tags • Studied the 66 most popular tags• Set up 2 focusgroups• A small group of non-librarians have tagged

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Search for non-librarians

s

64 reviews

1 tag

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A typical non-tagger?

Young female

Reviews

No tags

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Librarians – non-librarians

• More than 60% of the tags are made by librarians

• Most likely a lot more!

• 27 non-librarians

• Difficult to say anything conclusive

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Tag categories

• All 2139 tags have been studied and classified• 92 (4.3%) Private tags, e.g. “To_read”• 124 (5.8%) Tags reflecting personal opinions, e.g.

“Smashing”• 1923 (89.9%) Subject tags

• Most tags reflect subjects and are not for private use or personal opinions.

• Among the tags set by known non-librarians (27), 9.9 % reflected opinions and no tags were for private use.

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Subject tags

1923 subject tags

• 106 (5.5%) Genre

• 152 (7.9%) Geography

• 32 (1.7%) Prizes and awards

• 1633 (84.9%) Other

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Comparison to Subject headings

Stockholm public library

Subject headings for

• Non-fiction 1932- (LCSH)

• Fiction 1990-

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Different grammatical form

• 17.3% of all subject tags• 25.4% of non-librarians’ subject tags

• 62.9% singular form ”dog” instead of ”dogs”• 12.3% adjectives ”Violent”• 24,8% other differences

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Tags for multi words and phrases

• Tags are separated by space – only single words• Users want to create words and phrases

To become well• To• Become• Well

• Bad for consistency• Las Vegas: Las_Vegas, LasVegas, Las-Vegas

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The 66 most popular tagsused more than 10 times

Usage Tag145 Öknar (Deserts)139 klassiker 87 fantasy65 Origami55 Bör-läsas (Should be read)48 humor 48 kärlek (Love)46 Hugo-vinnare (A literary prize)42 provläs (Read to see if you like it)41 Krig (War) 40 Relationer…

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Mediatype tagged

• 41 (62%) fiction• 33 (50%) non-fiction• 19 (29%) film (dvd, vhs)• 5 (7.6%) music (cd)

Each tag can be used on more than one mediatype.

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Comparison to subject headings

(10 tags were for private use or reflected personal opinions)

56 subject tags• 29 (51.8%) Identical• 6 (10.7%) Almost identical• 7 (12.5%) More specific • 11 (37.9) More common• 3 (5.4%) Different

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Different tags

• Activities_with_children (12)useful for parents

• Children_in_danger (13) Several subjects headings: Childabuse, Mobbing, Immigrant girls

• Alternative-history (13)

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Why do users tag?Why don’t they tag?

No users contacted me about tagging

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Non-librarian users2 focus-groups• A) Players of role-playing games (4 persons, 15-20 years old)• B) Players of other games (5 persons, all 17 years old)

• Did not tag• Used the library, but not the website• Did not search the catalogue for fiction• Sceptical to user supplied information• “Only people that like a book writes about it”• “Librarians write better reviews”• Preferred descriptions to reviews• Preferred subject headings to tags• Books take a long time to read…

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Non-librarian users2 focus-groups• A) Players of role-playing games (4 persons, 15-20 years old)• B) Players of other games (5 persons, all 17 years old)

• Did not tag• Used the library, but not the website• Did not search the catalogue for fiction• Sceptical to user supplied information• “Only people that like a book writes about it”• “Librarians write better reviews”• Preferred descriptions to reviews• Preferred subject headings to tags• Books take a long time to read…

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Non-librarian taggers

• 8 people were asked to tag 10-20 tags

• 5 did tag

• 1 wrote reviews ”neaded more words”

• 2 found it too difficult & timeconsuming

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Non-librarian taggers

• None had tagged before• Difficult but interesting (4)• Quite easy (1)• Would have liked more information about how to

tag

• Tagging is not easy, but some people like to tag

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Tagging is not easy

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Users

• Most users do not want to tag!

• Difficult

• Cannot see the use of tags

• Most librarians love to tag

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Open librarieshttp://oppnabiblioteket.se

• Creating API’s for

• Part 1.Sharing librarians’ reviews

• Part 2. Sharing user supplied reviews, ratings and tags

• Cooperation between public libraries, university libraries and Libris

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Jönköping university libraryuses the API for Boktips.net

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Future improvements

• Multi term tags: Las Vegas

• Help forming tags – How to tag– Online suggestions

• Make tags more visible:– Tagclouds– From My loans etc.

• Sharing tags with other libraries. Öppna bibliotek.

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Conclusion

• > 60 % of the tags were set by librarians • Users find tagging less attractive than reviews

and ratings• Few users set tags• Still useful – the Long Tail• Tags set by non-librarians differ from subject

headings – but how much?• Tags do not replace subject headings

harriet.aagaard@kultur.stockholm.sewww.biblioteket.se