Tagging, authority control, and lycanthropes

Tagging, as we've seen, is a way for users to create or add terms to describe something online, whether it's a photo file on Flickr, blog posts, bookmarks, newspaper stories, or almost anything.

Authority control--where there's a single term (usually from the Library of Congress) that brings together everything on a subject--seems archaic, uncollaborative, even arbitrary, yet it is essential for any large database to function. It's what makes every library catalog (like SPL) searchable.

Take the name Mark Twain. The authority record is "Twain, Mark, 1835-1910". Enter his real name, Samuel Langhorne Clemens, and it will refer you back to the original authority record. So will entering Twain's other pen names, Quintus Curtius Snodgrass, Sieur Louis de Conte, or Jean Francois Alden.

The authority record for Sacramento is Sacramento (Calif.), to differentiate it from Sacramento (N.M.), Sacramento (Pa.), Sacramento (Ky.), or any other Sacramento in the world.

Sometimes, though, authority records from LC are slow to change. The hottest thing in romance novels is the vampire/werewolf/shapeshifter/paranormal genre. There are authority headings for vampires and werewolves, but what if the characters are something other than that? I've come across books with wereleopards and werepanthers--so why no term for lycanthropes in general? "Weres", which change shape according to a lunar or solar cycle aren't the same as shapeshifters, which alter their forms at will. No heading for shapeshifters, either. Not only that, were-whatevers and shapeshifters have been around in folklore and fiction for a very long time. So I suggested the terms "lycanthropes", "lycanthropy", and "shapeshifters" for authorized headings to LC. As far as I know, the terms haven't been adopted yet...and here is a perfect example of how tagging can improve the library catalog.