Tuesday Thingers 10 June 2008

This weeks question: Do you tag? How do you tag? How do you feel about tagging - do you think it would be better to have standardized tags, like libraries have standardized subject headings, or do you like the individualized nature of tagging? What are your top 5 tags and what do they say about your collection or your reading habits?

I love tagging my books. I think it's a good way for me to quickly access certain groupings of books. Most of my books have more than 1 tag (according to my LT Statistic page, my books are tagged 2.49 tags/book - I have 1,079 books in my LT library, with a total of 2,686 tags). Generally, I'll tag books by "genre"/type (Fiction, Memoir, Poetry, etc); by series or associated story (i.e. all my Xanth books are tagged "Xanth", or any books that deal with Oz, such as The Wizard of Oz or Wicked are tagged "Oz"); if they are part of a reading challenge of any sort (all the books read this year are tagged "100 Book Reading Challenge 08"); sometimes by how I received the book (i.e. "Bday 08" or "Xmas 07"). I tag all my unread books "Unread". I tag all my ARCs as "ARC" and then also by which program (such as "LT Early Reviewer" or "BN First Look"). If I have a particularly large number of books by one author, I'll use a tag of their last name (I have most of May Sarton's works and several literary studies on her work and life, so these are all tagged "Sarton"). There are any number of other ways that I tag my books, and I don't think that I'd like it if it were standardized. I like the flexibility of personalizing the "searchability" of my own library to my own specific needs. If there was a need to standardize it everywhere, I'd still like to be able to have a separate, personal tagging option.

My top 5 tags are "Unread" (236 books - awful, isn't it?); "Fiction" (225); "Fantasy" (158); "Comics" and "Graphic Novel" are tied (135); "Sarton" (96).