Librarything

I've catalogued some books using Librarything. I'm not sure what practical use this would have for a personal collection but I can see the social networking potential.

Tags raise the old issue of a natural v.s controlled language. I've never thought the LC Subject Headings were particularly good - and I don't see the logic of effectively double-cataloguing using LC and Dewey. I think the benefits of a controlled language are lessened in an electronic environment. Google doesn't use one, for instance. In practice the terminology of the LC Headings is oldfashioned, American, or just perverse (an example I came across yesterday: "Cardsharping" - who uses that term these days?). Since you can now do a keyword search, I would be happier if books were catalogued with a number of keywords. Yes, you would have a problem of idiosyncracy (which LC has anyway!), but you could devise protocols to get round this. At least then you would have keywords that your patrons were likely to use... There's not much point having a controlled language when this is incomprehensible to users!

But then a basic problem here is the unintelligent and unimaginative way library cataloguing is done. I'd prefer if libraries actually took a hard look at what they're doing rather than chasing the next big thing through cyberspace.