Contrasting user generated tags with controlled vocabularies: a case study of library thing tags with library of congress subject headings

The internet in its role of Web 2.0 with interactive and participativetools has given birth to the idea of creating metadata by users. The research on social tags has caught the attention of the information science professionals to incorporate them in library environment like in catalogues or controlled vocabularies. Here in this article the attempt has been made to compare Library of Science Subject Headings (LCSH) terms with Library Thing social tags. The results show that social tags can be used to enhance the metadata for information retrieval. But still, the uncontrolled nature of social tags is concern and creates uncertainty among researchers.