Are there any papers or research results concerning the way people use tags and keywords?

Question

I'm working on a tagging system at work, but one thing that I would be interested in is determining what has already been learned about the way people use such systems so that, when using libraries and tools and creating code, I can accommodate the way people do things (or so I hope).

After asking this question, I continued to go through Google Scholar, and I didn't see much of interest. A few interesting papers involve displaying keywords (which helps a little) and automatically finding keywords in a document (not so much in my case).

This is now a community-wiki post. After doing some more research, it appears to be a vast field, with no one answer that will help me any more than others. As such, I would appreciate it if anyone finds a paper or website that stands out among others to post it here. Thanks!

Answer 1

There were a fair number of seemingly relevant hits for Google Scholar when searching for for tag cloud. You might also be interested in results from this the Collaborative Web Tagging workshop at WWW2006 (scholar search results).

Answer 2

Patterns and Inconsistencies in Collaborative Tagging Systems: An Examination of Tagging Practices

Abstract:

This paper analyzes the tagging patterns exhibited by users of del.icio.us, to assess how collaborative tagging supports and enhances traditional ways of classifying and indexing documents. Using frequency data and co-word analysis matrices analyzed by multi-dimensional scaling, the authors discovered that tagging practices to some extent work in ways that are continuous with conventional indexing. Small numbers of tags tend to emerge by unspoken consensus, and inconsistencies follow several predictable patterns that can easily be anticipated. However, the tags also indicated intriguing practices relating to time and task which suggest the presence of an extra dimension in classification and organization, a dimension which conventional systems are unable to facilitate.

Answer 3

The Structure of Collaborative Tagging Systems

Abstract

Collaborative tagging describes the process by which many users add metadata in the form of keywords to shared content. Recently, collaborative tagging has grown in popularity on the web, on sites that allow users to tag bookmarks, photographs and other content. In this paper we analyze the structure of collaborative tagging systems as well as their dynamical aspects. Specifically, we discovered regularities in user activity, tag frequencies, kinds of tags used, bursts of popularity in bookmarking and a remarkable stability in the relative proportions of tags within a given url. We also present a dynamical model of collaborative tagging that predicts these stable patterns and relates them to imitation and shared knowledge.

Answer 4

I wrote a paper that was published earlier this year - Tagging and searching: Search retrieval effectiveness of folksonomies on the World Wide Web. This study is on the information seeking side of things, rather than user behavior or motivations for tagging. It compares the use of tags in search to directories and search engines. I also recommend Google Scholar, a lot of research can be found by searching for folksonomy.