UPenn's PennTags

Several weeks ago, Megan mentioned the University of Pennsylvania’s libraries as one of the few academic online catalogs that made use of tagging. Curious, I went a-looking.

Penn Libraries’ home-page is not immediately distinguishable from other academic OPACs. A prominently-placed “FindIt” search is provided for quick searching through the various catalogs associated with Penn. Along with links to different UPenn libraries' catalogs (and their more advanced and granular search pages), the panel on the left-hand side also includes links to contact information, e-resources, hours, etc.

The central panel features some randomly selected pictures of Penn’s libraries and librarians, along with links to upcoming library workshops, lectures, and events. This central pane is also tabbed. These tabs include: 1.) “Ask Us/ Get Help,” with libraries hours, contact information, IM/LiveChat options, etc; 2.) “Subjects/ Collections,” with subject categories (e.g., “Materials Research” or "Philosophy") and the links to their relevant databases and article indexes, e-journals, etc; and, 3.) “Libraries,” a tab with links to the various libraries in the Penn system.

Nothing too unfamiliar thus far.

Finally, though, in addition to the Penn Text article finder, we are introduced to the OPAC’s “toolbox” on the right-hand panel, which includes a link to “PennTags.” Following this we find ourselves on PennTags’ home-page, with tag cloud featured prominently.

Anyone familiar with del.icio.us should recognize the layout immediately:

Following, in turn, the link to "music" we find ourselves on another page that lists all pages that have been tagged with “music” by Penn students and faculty.



Interestingly, there was a wide variety of sources among the several hundred links that the "music" tag returned, not all of them linked to book citations or indexed journals from the UPenn library system. Some, for instance, were links to full-text articles on other university’s websites. Others were links to Youtube and popular internet sites.

Many, of course, were links to citations in the UPenn catalog. For instance, clicking on the link for Born in flames (tagged with cultural_theory, music)…

…returns this citation:

The online citation is much like any other, except that at the bottom its user-generated tags (cultural_theory, music) are displayed. Also available is a link to “Add to PennTags,” which is the means by which an individual actually does their tagging (through an "Add to PennTags" link added to your browser). One must have a current UPenn ID to tag materials.

Structurally, the PennTags system is similar to del.icio.us. We can browse a specific individual’s tags, and perhaps more importantly (from a research standpoint, that is) browse their “Project Folders,” which bundle related links the way that del.icio.us presently does.

Overall, PennTags seems promising, though still in a sort of experimental limbo, as the preponderance of the UPenn catalog has not been tagged, and, likewise, many of the links listed under a certain tag (say, again, “music”) were not specifically items held by UPenn’s libraries.

I find this hybrid model of authority quite fascinating. The tags (i.e., user-controlled) are not as obvious or accessible - or nearly as comprehensive - as the traditional-looking front-page OPAC (i.e., authority-controlled). Still, it suggests, if nothing else, a possibly viable means for a new and layered approach to information access, retrieval, and classification.