Folksonomies in organization and knowledge representation: a study in the area's literature

Abstract

The Folksonomy, a phenomenon of Web 2.0, allows users to organize the knowledge of a given domain, creating a representation of that domain and assisting in the organization and representation of information. Being a tool created collaboratively by users, it can help fill gaps found in controlled vocabularies used in archives, libraries and museums because it has aspects that contribute and do not contribute to the organization and representation of information and knowledge. Thus, the objective of this research is to verify in the Brazilian Information Science literature, which aspects of folksonomy contribute and do not contribute to the organization and representation of knowledge in order to reflect on the possibility of its use in controlled environments. The method used was bibliographic research, with an exploratory objective and a quantitative and qualitative approach. For data analysis, the Content Analysis method was used. The universe of research was Brazilian magazines in the area of communication and information with an A1 concept according to CAPES. The results demonstrate that the number of aspects that contribute is almost three times the number of aspects of folksonomy, that do not contribute to the organization and representation of information and knowledge, and that to take advantage of their contributions in controlled environments, the adoption of folksonomy assisted by information professionals along with the use of controlled vocabulary to improve the organization and retrieval of information and knowledge in these environments through the creation of effective access points.