Poster presentation for Folksonomies in Museums, Pratt Institute, Knowledge Organization course

1. Social Tagging and Folksonomies in Art Museums
Kathleen Dowling, Dana Hart, Noreen Whysel
Introduction The Museum User Interface
In a library, the user needs to have „entry points‟ Online collections search interface that helps art
such as title and author, to find a book. Until enthusiasts who wish to explore online art
recently, the art museum user needed to have collections, but may be unable to effectively utilize
similar identifying information for a particular work taxonomic keywords due to a lack of art historical
of art. A piece of artwork has no cover or copyright expertise or knowledge of art terminology.
page where identifying information is recorded .
Folksonomies help art museums to identify items
in their collections for access by their users.
Figure 2. How would an art museum user identify a
Jackson Pollock painting with no art historical knowledge?
Museum Taxonomies
Taxonomies are hierarchical systems of organization that
classify items into further and further defined groupings
through a series of parent-child relationships. Art
Figure 4. AMARA, a collections search interface,
museums use controlled vocabularies to organize their
AMARA helps users determine what types of art they are
collections into taxonomies; this structure then informs seeking by answering a few simple questions about their
the way their online galleries are organized. A top-down current beliefs and feelings.
What is a Folksonomy? structure is helpful to museum staff, who need strict
control over their holdings, but makes it difficult for
Thomas Vander Wal, founder of the Information users to explore online collections. The Future of Museum Folksonomies
architecture institute defines a folksonomy as the
user-created bottom-up categorical structure • Determine how to utilize a new folksonomy
alongside strict taxonomic vocabularies in
development with an emergent thesaurus. It is museums.
created from the act of tagging by the person
consuming the information. • Further explore how to engage people, keep
them engaged
• Use cyber communities to build real
communities.
References
Chan, S. (2007). “Tagging and Searching-Serendipity and museum collection databases.” In
D. Bearman and J. Trant (eds.). Museums and the Web 2007: Proceedings. Toronto:
Archives & Museum Informatics.
Chun, S., R. Cherry, D. Hiwiller, J. Trant, and B. Wyman. (2006). “Steve. museum: an
ongoing experiment in social tagging, folksonomy, and museums.” In D. Bearman and J.
Trant (eds.). Museums and the Web 2006: Proceedings. Toronto: Archives & Museum
Informatics.
Figure 3. Example of a museum taxonomy tree.