Tag, You're It

MLIS 7030 Final Project

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Welcome!

This blog is a part of a project for my LIS 7030: Organization of Knowledge class. AKA: Cataloging 101. The class can be summed up as “Here are all of the ways in which the Library of Congress fails patrons and librarians.” So, this project aims to look at some solutions to the pitfalls of LC cataloging. Specifically....

Let’s talk about user-tagging!

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We provide the highest level of service to all library users through appropriate and usefully organized resources; equitable service policies; equitable access; and accurate, unbiased, and courteous responses to all requests.

American Library Association, Code of Ethics

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WHEN I CAN’T REMEMBER MARC FIELDS AND WHAT THEY MEAN

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What is Tagging?

Let’s start off with some definitions first. 

Folksonomies: Also known as “social tagging,” a folksonomy is a “Classification system derived from user-generated electronic tags or keywords that annotate and describe online content.” The word is derived from the term “taxonomy,” which refers to the science of classification. Taxonomies are most often discussed in the biological sciences, but can also be relevant to library science when referring to hierarchical relationships between materials. 

Some examples of websites that utilize folksonomies include Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Instagram, and of course, Tumblr. Basically, every time you use a hashtag, you’re witnessing folksonomies in action.

“User-tagging” in cataloging, then, is referring to the proposal that we use folksonomies to organize library materials, and what’s more, allow patrons to participate in that process. 

User-tagging can lead to a whole host of benefits that serve to improve access to materials for patrons. Check out my post on the Pros & Cons of user-tagging for more info! You might also be interested in looking at a list of resources I’ve compiled on tagging tools for libraries. 

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TAXONOMY

EXPECTATION:

REALITY:

Submitted by Megan

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Pros & Cons of User Tagging

Pros: 

Studies show that patrons prefer keyword searches over subject searches. More natural language terms provided by tags (such as “light bulbs” instead of “electric lamp, incandescent”) will improve the user-friendliness of a catalog. 

Tagging has a greater opportunity to be inclusive of marginalized communities. The language used by the Library of Congress can be archaic and, at times, outright offensive (see my post that mentions the term “illegal aliens”). Giving users the power to assign tags to books in the catalog allows for greater diversity in the classification of materials. 

Tags adapt over time in a way that the Library of Congress can’t. Subject authorities in LC move slowly. Tags can be updated at the speed of your Internet connection. 

It creates a sense of community. When patrons are able to participate in the creation of the catalog, and are actively involved in the library’s website, strong communities can be formed centering around the library.

Cons

It can be hard to standardize.  For example, some patrons might use the tag “LGBT” where another would use “LGBTQ.” 

There may be typos, redundancies, and overly personal tags (”to-read,” or “library book”). 

A librarian (or librarians) would still need to check for trolls (although some tools, like BiblioCommons, have already taken that into account). 

For more detailed pros (and some mention of the cons), check out my posts on LGBTQ materials, We Need Diverse Books, epistolary fiction, and unreliable narrators. 

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WHEN SOMEONE CRITICIZES HOW I’VE ORGANIZED MY PERSONAL BOOKSHELVES

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Queering the Catalog

LGBTQ fiction is an excellent example of the possibilities that user-tagging presents. The Library of Congress has opened up in the last decade to more LGBTQ inclusive language, but it can still be confusing for the average patron. When should I search the catalog for “Gay teenagers” as opposed to “gay youth”? What’s the difference between “Gay men--Fiction” and “Gays--Fiction”? 

What’s more, even though LC has introduced more inclusive language over the years, that doesn’t mean it gets used when it should. To demonstrate what I mean here, let’s discuss two titles that are unequivocally about LGBTQ topics and/or characters.

Carry On, by Rainbow Rowell. This teen novel is a fantasy book, with loose similarities to Harry Potter and Harry Potter fan fiction, featuring two male characters who (#spoilers) try and fail not to fall in love. Here’s its MARC record: 

650  $aDating (Social customs)$vFiction.$ 650  $aBoarding schools$vFiction.$ 650  $aMissing persons$vFiction.$ 650  $aRoommates$vFiction.$ 650  $aTeenagers$vFiction$ 650  $aMonsters$vFiction.$ 650  $aWizards$vFiction.$ 650  $aVampires$vFiction$ 650  $aMagic$vFiction.$

No mention of homosexuality, or “gay teenagers.” In contrast, “LGBTQ” and “gay” show up as highly used tags on LibraryThing, a social cataloging website (created by librarians), that allows users to describe books using tags.

Of Fire and Stars, by Audrey Coulthurst. This is another teen fantasy novel, about two princesses who (spoiler) fall in love. But the MARC record looks like this: 

650  $aMan-woman relationships$vFiction$ 650  $aAssassination$vFiction.$ 650  $aPrincesses$vFiction.$ 650  $aHorses$vFiction.$ 650  $aMagic$vFiction.$ 650  $aFire$vFiction.$

Not only does the record not include anything to show that it includes LGBTQ characters, but it uses “Man-woman relationships” to describe the story. Again, the book is about two (female-identifying) princesses falling in love. 

Since neither character identifies as queer as of the beginning of the book, one might argue that it’s a spoiler to reveal that it’s an LGBTQ novel. But that doesn’t seem to be an issue for LibraryThing, or the several articles listing it as an LGBTQ recommendation for 2017. Its LibraryThing tags include “LGBTQIA,” “LGBTQ,” “gay,” “lesbian,” and “queer.” 

This is not to mention books with secondary characters who are queer (The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black), or where LGBTQ topics are discussed, but not integral to the main plot (I Hate Everyone But You by Gaby Dunn and Alison Raskin). 

Fortunately, this is something that the Hennepin County Library catalog (supported by BiblioCommons) appears to recognize. Both Carry On and Of Fire and Stars show up in a tag search for “LGBT” on HCL’s website, and The Darkest Part of the Forest does as well (despite also not having any LGBT indicators in its MARC record). Tagging FTW.

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20 Years of L.G.B.T.Q. Lit: A Timeline

From “The Vagina Monologues” to “The End of Eddy,” here are 25 books by and about L.G.B.T.Q. individuals that have shaped the genre.

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We Need Diverse Cataloging

Over the years, the Library of Congress has evolved (somewhat) on cataloging minority groups--whether it has evolved enough is up for debate--and this is reflected in the catalog. Subject authorities exist to include “gay teenagers,” “people with disabilities,” “Mexican-Americans,” “African American teenage girls,” “Transgender people,” and more. 

But do these advances reflect the needs of library users? A high school student looking for teen fiction featuring non-white characters may miss out on a ton of books by searching the library catalog for “non white characters” (nothing would show up). Or, if they did know to perform a subject search,  searching “African American teenagers” would lead to popular teen fiction title Tyler Johnson Was Here, but not the bestselling novel The Hate U Give (Its MARC record includes “African American teenage girls,” but not “African American teenagers”). 

And minds will be blown if we try to get into cataloging books featuring characters of multiple ethnicities, like The Sun is Also A Star by Nicola Yoon*.

We Need Diverse Books could potentially help with this. We Need Diverse Books is a nonprofit organization that is focused on making meaningful change in the publishing industry, specifically as it relates to diversity in young adult and children’s literature. According to their website, WNDB’s mission is to put “more books featuring diverse characters into the hands of all children.” 

WNDB is a campaign that has brought together a whole community of people who care deeply about diversity in young people’s literature. In a world that includes user-tagging in libraries, wouldn’t it be nice if a teen coming into the library to find books featuring non-white characters could access that community through a #weneeddiversebooks tag, rather than a potentially confusing subject search? 

*Sidenote: The Sun is Also A Star includes a controversial 650 subject field: $aIllegal aliens$vFiction.$. The Library of Congress tried to replace the term “Illegal aliens” with the terms “noncitizen” and “unauthorized immigration” in 2016. Unfortunately, Congress voted in June 2016 to retain the term “illegal alien” in order to “duplicate the language of federal laws written by Congress.”

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Why We Need Diverse Characters In YA Books, According To Angie Thomas

The author of The Hate U Give spoke to BuzzFeed about being inclusive when it comes to writing for children.

“If you’re writing about a gay boy or a black girl, you need to talk to a gay boy or black girl. You have to go above and beyond to get it right. The internet is a beautiful thing for a writer, but we have to put in the work. I think that’s key: Put in the work. Whether you’re writing about diversity or a legal thriller, you have to put in the work. Find the resources. Find the people. And when you find the people, please pay them. No one owes you anything — you owe them for their help!”

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Books of Unusual Formatting

So, let’s say you have a book that is compiled of letters, newspaper clippings, photographs, and other weird paraphernalia. Kind of like a scrapbook. But it’s a novel. How would you catalog it? 

Don’t worry, the Library of Congress doesn’t know either. 

Books like this are sometimes referred to as “Epistolary novels.” These novels are books with unusual formatting--such as letters, photographs, newspaper clippings, etc. Some recognizable examples include the popular young adult novel Illuminae--which is told through a series of partially redacted documents, emails, and interviews--or, House of Leaves, a bestseller which includes footnotes, fictional documents, and other unconventional formatting choices to tell the story. 

This unusual formatting would be hard to identify using the MARC records for either of these books. 

The 650 subject fields for Illuminae are limited to “Artificial Intelligence Fiction,” “Interplanetary Voyages Fiction,”  and “Plague Fiction.” Meanwhile, its 655 field is simply “Science Fiction.” 

The MARC record for House of Leaves does get a little closer with a labeling of “Experimental fiction” in its 655 field, but this doesn’t really do the work justice, in my opinion. 

In contrast, LibraryThing users have cataloged House of Leaves with tags like “Epistolary fiction” and “unusual formatting,” in addition to “experimental fiction.” Granted, there are several different versions of the tag “Epistolary fiction” (including “Epistolary” and “Epistolary literature”). So some redundancies need to be managed. Overall though, tagging gives a bit more context for one of the major appeals to this bestselling work.

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How to Catalog Unreliable Narrators

A classic literary trope that a library patron may be interested in is that of the unreliable narrator. An unreliable narrator, you probably know, is a “narrator whose account of events appears to be faulty, misleadingly biased, or otherwise distorted.” 

Some examples include Atonement’s Briony Tallis, Amy Dunne in Gone Girl, the unnamed main character of Fight Club, and Cadence Sinclair from We Were Liars. 

Unsurprisingly, the Library of Congress has no way of identifying novels as having unreliable narrators. Check out the 650 fields for Gone Girl, for example: 

650  $aWives$xCrimes against$vFiction. $

650  $aMarried people$vFiction. $

650  $aHusbands$vFiction. $ 

We Were Liars gets a little closer with: 

650  $aSecrecy$vFiction$

and 

650  $aTruthfulness and falsehood$vFiction$ 

But, when I used Hennepin County Library’s tagging dropdown menu (supported by BiblioCommons), searching for “unreliable narrator,” both Gone Girl and We Were Liars appeared (as well as other relevant titles I hadn’t considered, like Annihilation and I Want My Hat Back). Good job, HCL! 

The tag “unreliable narrator” also turns up in the top tags for both books on LibraryThing. 

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AFTER HOURS OF EDITING BIB RECORDS

Submitted by Alyssa

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Resources on Tagging for Libraries

LibraryThing for Libraries: LTFL is a catalog enhancement system designed for librarian use, run by Syndetic Solutions and the much-loved social cataloging website, LibraryThing. LTFL has a ton of cool features, including book recommendations for patrons, options to rate and review books, as well as tagging. Best of all, the tagging feature includes over 129 million tags, all of which have been vetted by librarians. This cuts out on “to-read” and “checked out” tags, not to mention trolling.  

TinyCat: TinyCat is an online catalog developed by LibraryThing, created specifically for small libraries. I think it can be best summed up in this 50 second video: https://youtu.be/jGOMIrmZ8-U. 

BiblioCommons: A software company that develops online cataloging services for libraries. The main goal behind BiblioCommons’ products is to encourage community-building online through OPACs--patrons can chat online about the books they’re reading, tag books they’ve read, and help the catalog make better recommendations for other users. Its biggest product, BiblioCore, is described as “A better catalog,” that “seamlessly integrates with every major ILS.” Check out their page on tagging for more info.