Folksonomies and Tagging

Along with crowdsourcing, we have also discussed the creation of folksonomies through social tagging as another means of creating a collective social intelligence.  Through tagging, users are able to add information about a digital object in the form of a keyword, thereby creating additional content and allowing increased access to the object.  This is an effective method of engaging the user with a collection as well as enabling an institution to expand on its description of a particular item.  A great example of this can be found at Steve Central: Social Tagging for Cultural Collections.  The site is a conglomeration of cultural objects from 21 institutions, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which allows users to tag items with keywords that they believe to be an appropriate description of the object.

A fellow student, Ms. Crumpton, discussed the site in her blog, and reading her comments made me realize that tagging not only provides additional information to the user about the actual object, but it also allows us a glimpse into other users' minds.  As an example, she used this bust of a young boy titled "Gamin," from the Cleveland Museum of Art.

This object has been tagged by users, and a tag cloud has been generated as a visual "map" of the information.

I found it fascinating to read the diverse descriptions provided by users.  Two adjectives used to describe the sculpture are "inquisitive" and "engrossed," which imply, although perhaps nuanced, different perceptions of the boy's facial expression.  This illustrates the fact that tagging can be a way to learn about varying interpretations of a work of art.  Art is interactive, combining the creative process of the artist with the viewers perceptions and interpretations.  Artists often comment on the fluid nature of their work and the adaptability of its meaning to each viewers personal experience of it.  I am struck by the idea that tagging could potentially be used as a method to study the infinite and evolving nature of how people view art.