Describing and Discovering Art through Social Tagging
Peggy Keeran, University of Denver
Treden Wagoner, Minneapolis Ins tute of Arts
Marly Helm, Arizona State Museum Library, University of Arizona ~~~~ ARLIS/NA‐MW Chapter 2010 Virtual Conference Adapt, Evolve, Transform: Current Issues in Art Informa on November 4, 2010
Social Tagging
• “tagging” is the process of choosing and assigning terms • “folksonomy,” is a confla on of folk and taxonomy, and is the collec ve vocabulary that results from tagging • “social tagging” is the socio‐technical context within which tagging takes place, tags that are supplied and shared by the general public in a common on‐line environment
blog/blogs so ware programming reference Web.20 usa, hongkong, london, 2005, 2006, 2007 beach
blue, green, red autumn or fall, night cameraphone, canon, Nikon music the
video dance of Delicious “Explore Everyone’s Tags” Delicious search on tags: santafe newmexico Flicker search on tags: santafe newmexico
Flickr geotagging: bridges scotland Flickr geotagging h p://www.flickr.com/map/: bridges scotland
No Tags, No Metadata
Trant, Jennifer. Tagging, Folksonomy and Art Museums: Results of steve.museum’s research.” h p://conference.archimuse.com/files/trantSteveResearchReport2008.pdf. . Metadata Tags Tags and Metadata “Effects of Background Informa on and Social Interac on on Image Tagging”
• Group 1 – images with no informa on • Group 2 – images plus a short, descrip ve tle • Group 3 – images, tle, and a URL to the page where the image appeared online • Stage 1 – none of the par cipants saw tags from other par cipants • Stage 2 – everyone saw the other tags assigned and were encouraged to interact with each other in assigning more •Objects seen by an individual with no context solicited the least useful tags •Background informa on allowed for more specific iden fica on •Combined knowledge of a group that interacts can help overcome the lack of context
How does/can social tagging work with tradi onal controlled vocabulary? • “Controlled vocabulary can be used to supplement natural language tagging, and natural language tags supplied by users can be used to enrich and extend controlled vocabulary. For example, when a user bookmarks ski resorts with the tag ski, the LCSH descriptor Dry slope skiing could be added to disambiguate the natural language tag and allow future users to evaluate the appropriateness of the resource” (“Perspec ves on Social Tagging,” p. 2392). Evolving Conversa on/Evolving Prac ce • Conundrum ‐ natural language keywords can impede discovery – Following the tag stream of trusted taggers – Pre‐defined tags • subver ng the “wisdom of the crowds”? • Stabilizing of vocabulary vs. serendipity of discovery Selected Sources
Bar‐Ilan, Judit, Maayan Zhitomirsky‐Geffet, Yitzchak Miller, and Snunith Shoham.“Effects of Background Informa on and Social Interac on on Image Tagging.” Journal of the American Society for Informa on Science and Technology 61, no 5 (2010): 940‐951. Ding, Ying, Elin K. Jacob, Zhixiong Zhang, Schubert Foo, Erjia Yan, Nicolas L. George, and Lijiang Guo.“Perspec ves on Social Tagging” Journal of the American Society for Informa on Science and Technology, 20, no. 12 (2009): 2388‐2401. Moulaison, Heather Lea. “Social Tagging in the Web 2.0 Environment: Author vs. User Tagging.” Journal of Library Metadata 8, no. 2 (2008): 101‐111. Steve.Museum, h p://www.steve.museum, accessed 3 Nov 2010. Trant, Jennifer. “Studying Social Tagging and Folksonomy: A Review and Framework.” Journal of Digital Informa on 10, no. 1 (2009): 44 pages. Trant, Jennifer. “Exploring the Poten al for Social Tagging and Folksonomy in Art Museums: Proof of Concept.” New Review of Hypermedia & Mul media 12, no. 1 (2006): 83‐105. Trant, Jennifer. Tagging, Folksonomy and Art Museums: Results of steve.museum’s research.” h p://conference.archimuse.com/files/ trantSteveResearchReport2008.pdf.