"en labyrint av vägar"
en kvantitativ och språkfilosofisk studie av taggar och taggstruktur i Stockholms stadsbiblioteks folksonomi
The purpose of this study is to perform both a quantitative and language philosophical analysis of the folksono-my and the tags in the Stockholm public library catalogue, which together with the Umeå university folksonomy, and the folksonomy of the Norrköping public library are the only library folksonomies in Sweden.The purpose of the first part of the study is to perform an analysis of the linguistical structure of the tags in the folksonomy. To do this a quantitative analysis has been conducted to grammatically categorize and evaluate tags using a method based on Louise Spiteri?s article ?The structure and form of folksonomy tags: the road to the public library catalogue? and the SAO guidelines. This part of the analysis aims to answer questions like: what characteristics do the tags in the folksonomy have and in what ways do they separate themselves from subject headings in a controlled vocabulary? Tags were here categorized according to grammatical properties like parts of speech and their social and private characteristics. A discussion regarding different semantical problems in folksonomies was conducted along with a comparative analysis between the SSB tags and the subject headings of SAO.Based on the findings from the first part of the analysis, the second part aims to answer questions about the use and meaning of tags within a folksonomy. The later theories of Ludwig Wittgenstein are used to discuss the findings of the first analysis. There is a twofold focus here: firstly, on the potential of seeing a folksonomy as a language game, and secondly, on the private characteristics of tags. The latter being a thought that so far has been neglected in studies of library and information science. This part of the analysis aims to discuss the possi-bilities of seeing a folksonomy as a language game and what it is that makes tags in a folksonomy meaningful. It also aims to discuss the possibility of seeing tags as private sensations. Different examples and discussions from Philosophical investigations are used as a theoretical framework in the analysis.The results of the analysis show that tags in the SSB folksonomy mostly consist of single-word terms - nouns written in indefinite and concrete article - and that they have a high social value. They highly correlate with subject headings either fully or as see also references. It also shows that folksonomies can be seen as both primitive and more advanced language games, plus that the meanings of tags are derived from the context in which they reside and the context of the folksonomy users. Discussions also show that tags may or may not be seen as private sensations depending on individual perspectives regarding the matter.