“A Semantic Similarity Approach for Predicting Library of Congress Subject Headings for Social Tags,” by Kwan Yi, appears in JASIST, 61(8):1658-1672, 2010. This is an important article for library students to read. Carefully.
The author recognizes that linking social tags to controlled vocabularies may help with the organization of information that is only socially tagged. And the article is a good review of the application of five popular measures of semantic similarity metrics.
The interesting step for the article would be the reverse of the author’s suggested: “The study of introducing the LCSH to give a control to social tags…”(p. 1670).
Why not introduce “social tags” to enrich the finding experience of users in LCSH settings?
A substantial body of users find information with “social tags,” so why not offer that option?
The user experience with “social tags” along side LCSH headings in a library setting awaits future research.