Tagging and del.icio.us

I already have a del.icio.us account http://del.icio.us/eljepson that I don't use all that often. I'm so used to using the Favorites tool on Internet Explorer, that I forget to use del.icio.us, even though I've put a link where its handy! The biggest advantage I see for using del.icio.us is being able to find my favorites on my work computer and on my home laptop.

While the idea of tagging really doesn't bother me, I can see how it might make our catalog messy if patrons started putting their own tags in. But don't many library catalogs already seem messy to our patrons, because they don't necessarily know what the best search terms are, and have never heard of subject headings?

I didn't know that cookbooks were listed under cookery until I started working in a library. A normal person would search for cookbooks. Did you know that the subject heading for books about Saint Nick is Nicholas, Saint, BP of Myra? Have you ever tried to find books about how to tell time? I would personally tag every book I found in InfoSoup that explained how to tell time, because it is not easy for myself or our patrons to tell from the catalog if books with subject headings of time--juvenile fiction or juvenile literature are about clocks, the concept of time, time travel, calendars, etc...