Enhancing Library Catalogs with Tags

Let's face it, most of us have never been satisfied with providing subject access to our books exclusively via Library of Congress subject headings. Though they provide a level of consistency that's important, the terms used haven't always been, how should I say it, intuitive. Many firm libraries enhance the subject headings with more popular terms. I guess you could say, they've been tagging for some time.

Now there's talk about letting your catalog users add tags and comments to cataloging records. There was an interesting thread on Web4Lib on this topic. (See The Shifted Librarian - OPAC Tagging - Who's it?) You can see tagging in action on the Penn Library Catalog. (Scroll down to the bottom.)

While I really like the idea of using tags and other feedback options in a law firm library catalog, it's always debatable whether any will actually contribute. At any rate, it would certainly be nice to have the option to extend knowledge management to the library catalog.