Developing a working taxonomy for pan-fandom information behavior comparison

Abstract

Fan fiction writers regularly work to find the best ways to describe their fan fiction so that it will be seen by all the readers it might interest. Prior work studying the use of tags as metadata, which allows users to sort and filter fan fiction, demonstrates the value of their inclusion in studies of fan writing, fan labor, and fan information practices. By developing a method to study the organization of fan archives, such as a taxonomy of fan tags that can be applied to the works of any fandom, we will be able to gain understanding of the ways fan writers think of describing their works through comparisons of writer/archivist practices across distinct fandoms. From a library and information science perspective, findings that are common across fandoms could reveal ways to design reader-focused features for catalogs and book discovery systems that will allow users to search for fiction more effectively and find literature that interests them in their local libraries. One fan tag taxonomy has already been developed and has been used to study the works tagged "Romy" among fan fiction works in the Marvel Comic Universe. Here, that taxonomy is applied to a different fandom to test its validity for pan-fandom use, and the addition of a tag subtype to denote family relationships is recommended.