Social Tags vs LCSH Descriptors: A Comparative Metadata Analysis of Tagore’s Literature

Abstract

Technological development has empowered civilization from all aspects. With the prevalence of web 2.0 applications, a new way of resource description has become popular called 'social tagging'. Social tagging has revolutionized how we describe and access web resources, offering numerous benefits over traditional cataloguing systems. This flexible and user-driven approach allows anyone to assign keywords to any resource, enabling quick adaptation to changing user needs. With social tagging, users can search for resources through tag recommendations, making it a cost-effective alternative that eliminates the need for professional librarians. The popularity of standalone social tagging applications, such as LibraryThing, BibSonomy, Goodreads, Anobii, Flickr, and Readgeek, has made it accessible to a wide range of users, offering a new way to discover and share information. This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness and applicability of social tags compared to Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) descriptors in Literature, specifically focusing on Rabindranath Tagore's works. By comparing the two approaches, this research seeks to determine whether social tags can be a viable alternative or complement to traditional LCSH descriptors, which are widely used in libraries for resource description.

The study highlighted the advantage of social tags over LCSH (Library of Congress Subject Headings) in classifying Tagore's literature, showing that social tags achieved greater precision and recall in capturing the nuances and complexities of his works.