Scanning my feeds today, I came across the opening salvo in ITI’s Computers in Libraries blogging effort. Although I did email Don Hawkins to get my green ribbon, that wasn’t what struck me about the post. It was this: “The tag for all blog posts and Flickr photos will be CIL2008.”

Why? Because three years ago, I did a whole lot of blabbing on the topic of consensual tagging at CiL. I proposed a few different tag options and the one respondent and I agreed on cil2005.

To be honest, I hadn’t thought much of it since, but now I wonder: Is that really the origin of what has become the official tag? Probably not. It’s a pretty obvious choice and, for all I know, there were probably others talking about it earlier. But I like to think I contributed to a still-growing phenomenon.

A search of Flickr shows 226 pictures tagged cil2005. By the following year, ITI was on board. This resulted in 626 photos tagged cil2006 on Flickr. And in 2007, a stunning 1,418 photos were tagged on Flickr with cil2007.

Granted, this speaks to the growth of Flickr as well as consensual tagging, but I think the value of an agreed-upon tag has been demonstrated. When I was unable to attend last year, the easy access to hundreds of photos from the conference was my connection to the event.

And I’ve already subscribed to the Technorati search results feed for cil2008, so I can see who’s as excited as I am.

Tags: cil2008