Social Tagging and Secondary School Libraries

Abstract

This chapter examines the Archive of Our Own (AO3) tagging system and backend design to determine how its successful elements can be implemented in a secondary school library setting. Specifically, it looks at social tagging on the platform to evaluate how effective a collaborative tag-based search system could be as a supplement to a traditional school library catalog. The author conducted field research and created an online library tagging template for school use. Google Forms are also used to generate content for the platform, which is designed for both librarian and student user groups. This work was carried out throughout the 2019-2020 school year. The author found that community care, subject knowledge, and “tag wrangling” are the key elements of the AO3 that can potentially be leveraged in a secondary school library environment to promote student engagement and reading for pleasure.