Tagging and cataloging should be friends

Tagging is Web 2.0's answer to cataloging. Basically, you assign a word or term that you think is important to whatever item you want to find again, like a website or a picture. This is particularly helpful when you've accumulated a big list of pictures and want find all the pictures of your pet porcupine Prickly. You can tag those pictures "porcupine" or "Prickly" or "pet" or whatever term is meaningful to you.

Tagging becomes pretty cool when you can share your tags with other people, such as on the website LibraryThing. You can see if other people have used the same tags as you, or if they have better tags. This social aspect of tagging ties into the concept of Web 2.0, where people can share information and even create information together.

Some libraries are joining the tagging bandwagon, such as UK Libraries with their Encore interface or the Ann Arbor District Library, which allows its patrons to tag materials in the catalog.

I think this is all very cool, even if some librarians don't. Some catalogers are decrying tagging, saying it is akin to letting a bunch of typing monkeys go wild in the world of information, which should be carefully organized and categorized just so. I think they're missing the point of tagging. It's just another form of organization, albeit a much more relaxed one.

Besides, I think the popularity of tagging should be a clue that users don't find much use for the standard library catalog (what do you expect if the standard subject heading is "cookery" not "cooking"?), which is static in comparison to the dynamics of the web. I'm not advocating the abolishment of subject headings (they're still quite helpful for researchers), rather pointing to the need for libraries to evolve and take advantage of new technology.

I've discovered a website that allows one to "catalog" one's books. Check out ozimanndias8's tiny web-library. This is a prelude to an all-out library project I'm considering embarking on--cataloging my own library according to the cataloging standards I'm learning in class. It's a great way to learn by doing.
We just learned how to catalog maps. It's quite fascinating the way Library of Congress allows for a detailed classification of a particular map. You can specify each record all the way down to the type of map it is. You would think that such things as type of map, subject of map (is it topographical or a railroad map?), even the cities within a country, would be a given in map cataloging, but Library of Congress is the only cataloging standard that allows for such detail (as far as I know).

Who knew that library school could be so funny?
Here is a rule from the fat tome of AACR2 (Anglo-American Cataloging Rules 2nd edition):

21.26 Spirit Communications
21.26A. Enter a communication presented as having been received from a spirit under the heading for the spirit (see 22.14). Make an added entry under the heading for the medium or other person recording the communication.

Food for the million, or, Thoughts from beyond the borders of the material / by Theodore Parker ; through the hand of Sarah A. Ramsdell
Main entry under the heading for the spirit of Parker
Added entry under the heading for Ramsdell

Apparently, Mark Twain has written stuff from beyond the grave. I believe that there are books or pamphlets in some library somewhere that have been attributed to: Twain, Mark (Spirit)