Folksonomies fascinate me

Folksonomies fascinate me, in no small part because they are a direct response to a failing of our profession which has irritated me since library school days – the failure to consider the user above all else. I’ve been trying to dig out an old letter I wrote to some journal when I argued this case, providing a suggested hierarchy to utilise for professional decisions (can’t remember the full thrust of it now but was along lines of user first, then the info, then the library, then the librarian, etc – sure I’ve posted this elsewhere, so apologies if repeating myself).
Anyhow, I do remember this thought originated from my “Cat(aloguing) & Class(ification)” lectures, where I despaired at the disproportionate effort we applied when balanced with the value the user received – we catalogued for ourselves, not for our users, and this broke my intuitive hierarchy. In my sweet innocence, I clearly saw our methods were fundamentally flawed and got very frustrated that many other students (and most librarians I’ve met since) didn’t see this. And then I gave up, and just accepted it (though still let myself have the odd grumble – just ask Terry Willan!)
I can frame this problem best in analysis terms. When embarking on a piece of analysis, a key step is determining the user classes/types that the software will serve. Wiegers definition of a user class is “A group of users for a system who have similar characteristics and requirements for the system”. If I was analysing the issuing of a book, several potential classes that spring to mind are “Library Assistants”, “Front Desk Manager”, “Librarian”, “Customer”, “System Administrator” and “Library Manager”. Already I’m thinking these may need to be merged (the first three may fall under this remit). Each class’s requirements will vary in terms of functional, non-functional and business, so I would prioritise user classes to understand where to focus my attentions. I may use personas to better help me understand their needs and direct development.
Who are the user classes for a classification scheme? At the highest level, I would say librarians and “ROTW”, being the “Rest Of The World”. The ROTW is very difficult to break into user classes (but techniques are available to do this) because of the vast scope for individuality – what one person calls “cinema”, the next calls “film” (as Clay Shirky puts it). There is no way a librarian could consider managing this in terms of classification - “I can’t satisfy everyone” so librarians take the easy path, and develop a system that meets their requirements. It’s up to ROTW to learn this, and accept that the librarian’s mental model doesn’t match its own.
Librarians were the gatekeepers to knowledge, so the ROTW marched to our tune because they had no choice. Now, however, with the information explosion, the ROTW is standing up and saying “look, this isn’t good enough – I want these terms, and he wants those terms, and she wants it to work like this and…”. Folksonomies are our users fighting back – each individual gets their own classification scheme for their own domain/world, and the ROTW gets a scheme by combining all these individual efforts. You don’t need to break out user classes, because they determine themselves when schemes are combined. You will find many of the terms you use match with those used by Mr X and Mrs Y. For your small section of the world, you will have a scheme that’s balanced to your needs.
As I said, folksonomies fascinate me. And as a librarian, I would say they meet my personal needs as an individual far better than anything librarians have provided for me. If librarians don’t start opening themselves up to this philosophy, don’t stop building walls to all this perceived chaos, we may find another finger slipping from the power we’ve gathered. And very soon, we’re going to drop…