The folksonomies between the concepts and the access points: the roles of descriptors, citations and tags in the information retrieval systems

Abstract

The paper discusses the potentialities of the folksonomies through the proposition and analysis of concept representation schemas which constitute the different resources of subject indexing. The development of specialized information sources is approached and the technical bases of natural and documentary languages are reviewed. It deals with the retrieval systems which make use of the collaboration networks inherent to the information production and use; this is done to illustrate the functioning of this kind of resources when the citation indexes and the social bookmarking tools are analyzed. Finally, it makes a necessary distinction between the role of the folksonomias as instruments of conceptual representation and as access points.