Purpose -The purpose of this article is to provide a quantitative analysis of the extent to which folksonomies replicate the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) to see if folksonomies would successfully complement cataloger-supplied subject headings in library catalogs. Design/methodology/approach -The paper compares social tags and LC subject headings for ten books from various library-related applications including next generation OPACs and LibraryThing by ranking tags and subject headings using scales modified from research by Golder and Huberman, Voorbij, and Kipp. Findings -Social tagging does indeed augment LCSH by providing additional access to resources. Research limitations/implications -Several of our applications lacked tags for the books we chose in our study. Tags are primarily taken from LibraryThing. Practical implications -A hybrid catalog combining both LCSH and a folksonomy would result in richer metadata and be stronger than the sum of its parts, giving patrons the best of both worlds in terms of access to materials. Originality/value -This paper supplies quantitative support for the use of folksonomies in a library's catalog. The data also supports many of the previous theories proposed in literature about folksonomies and social tagging.

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PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide a quantitative analysis of the “messiness” of the social tags in folksonomies to see how useful they might be for general search and retrieval in library catalogs.Design/methodology/approachThe study harvested tags for ten books from LibraryThing measuring characteristics which would hinder search and retrieval in library catalogs.FindingsBecause there are no rules governing the way people tag, folksonomies suffer from a certain degree of messiness and inconsistency. More than a third of this messiness is in the form of tag variations followed by tags containing non‐alphabetic characters. The other types of messiness measured were less significant, making tag variations the most prominent hindrance to search and retrieval.Originality/valueThe paper supplies quantitative support for giving users guidance for creating tags in a library catalog. However, libraries should remember that part of the attraction of social tagging is its open and self‐created environment and that too many rules and regulations may discourage participation.

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