tagveld

Tagveld is a term used in information management to describe the data field that stores tags or keywords assigned to an item. A tagveld is typically a multi-valued attribute, containing a set of strings that describe content, context, or metadata. In practice, it is implemented as a list or array of tokens, often normalized to lowercase, trimmed of whitespace, and deduplicated to prevent duplicates. In many systems, tags are free-form and user-generated, but some schemas apply controlled vocabularies or synonyms to maintain consistency. The term combines the English word tag with the Dutch word veld, meaning field, and appears in Dutch-language documentation and discussions of metadata design.

The primary purpose of a tagveld is to support discovery and organization. It enables flexible categorization, faceted search, recommendations, and user-driven annotation. Tag data is typically stored alongside other item attributes and may be indexed to speed up lookups. Depending on the implementation, a tagveld can be flat (no hierarchy) or support hierarchical or linked-tag structures.

Common design considerations include normalization and deduplication, handling multilingual or synonyms, governance of tag clouds, and performance implications for large repositories. Some systems implement versioning of tags, tag suggestions, or auto-suggestion based on existing vocabularies to reduce fragmentation.

Examples include content management systems where articles carry a tagveld, photo libraries with visual or thematic tags, and e-commerce catalogs where products are discoverable via topical tags. See also: metadata, tagging, controlled vocabulary.