After some reflection, I wanted to ramble a bit more about using an agreed-upon tag to collocate resources related to the upcoming Computers in Libraries conference. Writing this post also gives me the opportunity to test out the MT TechnoratiTags plugin, which couldn't be much easier to implement and use is proving to be more of a pain in my buttocks than I had imagined.

Anyway, I must admit to some frustration at the lack of feedback and discussion about using a common tag across the various folksonomical sites, such as Flickr or del.icio.us (sorry for the lack of hypertextuality, but it's late and I'm lazy). Still, I'm confident that this is a good idea and that, as information professionals, we need to insert ourselves into the folksonomies turf and show what we can do with our "Information Organization and Access" skills. We're already lagging behind other efforts in this domain. Exhibit A: the Northern Voice blogging conference. They had the complete package: a conference website built as a blog, updated before, during and after the conference; an aggregator featuring all of the participating bloggers at the conference; AND organized tagging. Granted, there was no discussion about the tags, just an edict from Ronald Tanglao declaring northernvoice to be the tag of choice, but the results are undeniable. Here are the aggregated results of the northernvoice tag in Technorati, Flickr (658 photos!) and del.icio.us.

Applying this to content related to Computers in Libraries seemed like such a commonsense idea to me, but I realize now that I may have been presumptuous on a few different levels.

First, in all likelihood, no one reads this blog anymore given my extended hiatus and lack of worthwhile content. Totally understandable, although those of you who kept me in your aggregator were immediately alerted to my return. There are also probably some who are only subscribed in their podcatcher and therefore miss any of the text content (any feed I subscribe to with my podcast aggregator, I also subscribe to in Bloglines).

Second, most people aren't going to this particular conference and therefore couldn't care less. OK, fair enough, but I'd still like to know what term you'd use to search for content related to the conference. I like to believe that we do this kind of collocation for the particular benefit of those who can't be there in person, making those perspectives essential.

Third, most people, even in the blogosphere, are not necessarily "early adopters" and therefore haven't really participated in any tagging-based sites. Thus some education might be in order, although I don't fancy myself the ideal candidate. Still, I'd be happy to guide anyone who expressed interest.

As the Northern Voice conference demonstrated, consensus tagging is only one part of the picture, but it's the part I've tried to motivate, however unsuccessfully. I'd love to see Information Today (or anyone with the skills/resources, for that matter) take up the reins and demonstrate that the LIS world is not going to be left in the dust when it comes to organizing digital resources.

Incidentally, with the publication of this post, there should be a Technorati tag page for cil2005.