I read the articles. I browsed the websites. I looked at the libraries on Goodreads. i was underwhelmed about tagging. I have been hearing that tagging is the future of building a semantic web for about a decade or more without seeing any real move in that direction for the vast majority of users. People are still using the same catalogs, search engines, and databases and largely ignoring the tagging revolution that is coming any day now. Maybe it's the high cost of abandoning learned techniques in favor of new ones, maybe it's because no one website has become the next Big Thing in book tagging. Whatever the reason, the Web 2.0 experience has seemed to mainly catch on with a small group of people that create a great deal of content read by a small but slightly larger group of people.
I must admit that I am not very good to goodreads. I only use it for read-a-like suggestions for reader's advisory and never participate myself. Even then, I find readers often suggest authors that are terrible matches for each other and the wisdom of crowds is not very wise indeed. I browsed the libraries on good reads and didn't find much activity there. Most had well less than 50 members and almost no patron activity. I think Goodreads is good for Librarians but not very popular with users of libraries.
I am much more optimistic about Librarything. Having tagging and reviews in catalog is an excellent resource and I'd like to see it in my own library. I am not crazy about the mini bookshelf but love having tags and reviews within a catalog. i just wonder how I'd train my users to understand and use it and the value of an enterprise that needs training.
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