Searching v. Discovery (and ALA) [Post #500]

In looking at my list of posts as I edited this one and a couple others, I noticed that this is post number 500.[Actually there are three older posts in draft form that I need to edit...this weekend, I hope.] I started on July 5, 2005. At that time I never thought I would get this far, and certainly not in 5 1/2 years.

Andromeda Yelton, in her ... blog, talks about these topics. In chronological order, she starts with "The structure of ALA seems to me like a controlled vocabulary." In that post, she admits that she understands the strength and power of controlled vocabulary, but in moving the analogy to ALA she shows some insight:

I see people (including, but not only, Gen Xers) talking about the disconnect between ALA and younger librarians, they’re talking about the divide between a slow vetting process and a system that’s nimble, fast, long-tail-friendly, decentralized — chaotic, uncertain, unpredictable, emergent.

She ends with a great question:

You want to know what I spend a lot of time thinking about these days, it’s this: how do you cultivate the metaphoric parallels of tagging in a controlled-vocabulary world? How do you get there from here?

A day later she talks more about the fallacies of tagging (i.e. discovery) and less about ALA.

And finally, she gives her answers to some of the questions Andy Woodworth raises about ALA.