Folksonomies versus controlled vocabularies: Theoretical approaches

Abstract

The purpose is review the literature to identify the epistemological and theoretical approach to the folksonomies and compare them with the theoretical foundations of controlled vocabularies. This paper is a library research. A review of the literature, identify and review theoretical approaches related to the folksonomies includes Critical social theory, Social constructivism, Relativism, Derrida’s deconstruction and hospitality and compared  them with the theoretical foundations of controlled vocabulary . In theoretical approaches emphasized that people and users are different and have their different experience and knowledge, So they formed different concepts in mind and used different words to express their concepts that are different from one user to another user. These diversity concepts is represented in folksonomies. But in controlled vocabularies, concepts that only exist in the minds of catalogers is represented which may different with concepts that are in the minds of users. On the other hand, relativity can create the lack of uniformity and it is considered a disadvantage for folksonomies. While, uniformity is considered in controlled vocabularies and is an strength for them. In conclusion reviewed theoretical approaches provide theoretical basis for judging folksonomies capabilities, advantages and disadvantages and comparing them to controlled vocabularies, but must consider findings in future researches.

Keywords

• Folksonomies
• social tagging
• controlled vocabularies
• critical social theory
• social constructivism
• relativism
• Derrida’s deconstruction and hospitality.