Title

Structure, subjectivity, and power: The provisional space of libraries within the social tagging movement

Authors

Melissa Higgins, University of Denver

Files

Streaming Media

Description

Presentation by Melissa Higgins at the Symposium on Information and Technology in the Arts and Humanities (April 22 & 23, 2015). The Symposium was sponsored by the Special Interest Groups for the Arts and Humanities (SIG AH) and Visualization, Images, and Sound (SIG VIS) of the Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T).

This paper addresses the potential uses of social tagging techniques for libraries, and also examines the question of potential challenges and barriers to that use. Through the theoretical framework developed by Michel de Certeau in The Practice of Everyday Life, a distinction is drawn between the techniques available to individual users and those available to structured organizations. The author then examines two specific websites, Flickr and The National Library of Ireland’s Digital Collections, through a specific research question, in order to argue that contextual detail and the tactics for searching available to individual users make social tagging a more favorable method of research. However, it is also asserted that key discrepancies between the motivations of individuals and institutions like libraries may prevent the interests of both from becoming aligned.

Melissa Higgins is currently a first-year Library and Information Science student at the University of Denver. Previously, she graduated in 2013 with a Master’s in English Literature from the University of South Carolina, concentrating in 20th century British Literature. She is primarily interested in digital collections, the digital humanities, and the changing landscape of research in academic settings.

All of the Symposium recordings can be viewed at: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2v-vQy9W5DePg7QSKABGmuVzCXpVkeTh

Slides can be downloaded from: http://figshare.com/authors/Symposium_on_Information_and_technolology_in_the_arts_and_humanities/740215

Publication Date

4-23-2015

Publisher

Symposium on Information and Technology in the Arts and Humanities (ASIS&T SIG AH and SIG VIS)

Keywords

Digital Humanities, Information Science, Library Science, Information Technology, ASIS&T, social tagging, digital libraries, National Library of Ireland Digital Collection, Association for Information Science and Technology

Disciplines

Library and Information Science

Recommended Citation

Higgins, M. (2015). Structure, subjectivity, and power: The provisional space of libraries within the social tagging movement. Retrieved from https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/sjsuasist/54