Social Tagging in a Linked Data Environment

Social tagging (including hashtags) is used over platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, WordPress, Tumblr and YouTube across countries and cultures meaning that one single hashtag can link information from a variety of resources. This new book explores social tagging as a potential form of linked data and shows how it can provide an increasingly important way to categorise and store information resources.

The internet is moving rapidly from the social web embodied in Web 2.0, to the Semantic Web (Web 3.0), where information resources are linked to make them comprehensible to both machines and humans. Traditionally library discovery systems have pushed information, but did not allow for any interaction with the users of the catalogue, while social tagging provides a means to help library discovery systems become social spaces where users could input and interact with content.

The editors and their international contributors explore key issues including:

• the use of hashtags in the dissemination of public policy
• the use of hashtags as information portals in library catalogues
• social tagging in enterprise environments
• the linked data potential of social tagging
• sharing and disseminating information needs via social tagging.

Readership: Social Tagging in a Linked Data Environment will be useful reading for practicing library and information professionals involved in electronic access to collections, including cataloguers, system developers, information architects and web developers. It would also be useful for students taking programmes in library and Information science, information management, computer science, and information architecture.

'Pennington and Spiteri have pulled together a kaleidoscope of scenarios that explore the role and evolution of social tagging. From traditional library discovery systems and recommender systems to ontologies for dementia, effects on public policy to cognitive authority in Facebook communities, to Web 2.0, Web 3.0, and beyond. Tagging and linking—two  words that imply so much more than what they say—provide the core for this work. A valuable collection for anyone wanting to explore the possibilities of letting people have their say through the simple act of contributing their own words…#goodread #liked'
- Shawne D. Miksa, Associate Professor, University of North Texas

'Pennington, Spiteri, and their thoughtful contributing authors give us a thesaurus, a treasure chest of concepts, constructs, and tools for building new means of navigating constellations of people authoring, publishing, and looking for information. How do we find useful information? How do we bring information to the point of use? How do we determine veracity and cognitive authority of information? Who is now to link what with whom? Here the reader will find much to use and much to ponder.'
- Brian O’Connor, Professor, University of North Texas

Diane Rasmussen Pennington is a Lecturer in Information Science at the University of Strathclyde. Diane worked as a corporate IT professional and then a systems librarian before becoming a full-time academic in 2005. Diane’s PhD dissertation focused on social tagging practices of photojournalism professionals, and tagging has remained as a central focus of her research. Diane served as the Association for Information Science & Technology’s Social Media Manager from 2014-2016. 

Louise Spiteri is Associate Professor at the School of Information Management, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Louise’s areas of research interest focus on social tagging, user-generated metadata, discovery systems, classification systems, and taxonomies. Louise’s most recent research has focused on the creation of taxonomies for affect, based on an analysis of user-generated reviews and content in public library catalogue records.