Date Approved

5-15-2008

Embargo Period

3-22-2016

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

M.A. in School and Public Librarianship

Department

Special Educational Services/Instruction

College

College of Education

Advisor

Shontz, Marilyn

Subject(s)

Online library catalogs--New Jersey; Public librarians--New Jersey--Attitudes

Disciplines

Library and Information Science

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to survey southern New Jersey public librarians' attitudes towards the feasibility of including user-generated tagging in the public library online public access catalog (OPAC). The research questions of the thesis concerned the advantages and disadvantages of user-generated tagging, the co-existence of user-generated tagging and controlled subject headings, the future of user-generated tagging, and what the librarians thought about user-generated tagging in the OPAC.

The methodology of the study was applied research. Nineteen southern New Jersey public librarians completed an attitudinal survey on user-generated tagging. Responses were tallied and placed into a spreadsheet and graphic representations for analysis.

A finding of the study was that "good-enough," in reference to user-generated tagging, was not acceptable to the majority of the southern New Jersey public librarians. None of the librarians had user-generated tagging in their OPACs, and a significant finding of the thesis was that a majority of the librarians chose advantage in response to the survey statement user-generated tagging and controlled subject headings can co-exist.

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