DIY Librarian

I had started to write a post about Thomas Mann’s Library Journal article, Research at Risk, in which he argues that keyword searching is a poor substitute for librarian-created subject headings, and Clay Shirky’s paper, Ontology is Overrated: Categories, Links, and Tags, in which he argues that library subject headings are obsolete and the future of content organization lies in social tagging. I never got around to finishing it, and I scrapped the post. As it turns out in this case, good things come to those who wait, because the Inquiring Librarian has written a response to another similarly-themed Mann paper, Will Google’s Keyword Searching Eliminate the Need for LC Cataloging and Classification?, making the point that keyword searching and subject headings can work together. I would take this one step further and say that keyword searching, subject headings, and tagging can work together. If an item (say, a book) has searchable content, has been cataloged by a librarian, and has been tagged by users, why not search all three? [Inquiring Librarian link via Carnival of the Infosciences #6]