Tuesday Thingers

Today's question is about tags- do you tag? How do you tag? How do you feel about tagging- do you think it would be better to have standardized tags, like libraries have standardized subject headings, or do you like the individualized nature of tagging? What are your top 5 tags and what do they say about your collection or your reading habits?

My answer:
I tag by genre and roughly by subject, as I think it's important to my library. Fiction, nonfiction, history, maybe I'll mention if it's particularly French or Russian or Jewish since I'm interested in those subjects; I usually mention if it's poetry, and then what kind- American, Irish, French, etc. I have idiosyncratic tags, like "library book" or "mooched" (if I've given something away), I use ARC for advance reader copy, etc. All of my books are tagged- I assign at least one tag as soon as I add a book.

I like making up my own tags for my library but sometimes the librarian in me thinks I'd have better luck cross referencing other libraries to find similar books if standardized headings were available or if the system assigned them automatically. I'm sure a lot of people would be upset though if a book was assigned a heading that they didn't like though.

My top five tags are:
fiction (430), nonfiction (178), ARC (72), jewish (71), manga (66). That's as of today!