Especially in the area of web-based and multimedia information, tagging platforms have become increasingly popular in recent years. Depending on system as well as media type, user contributed tags can play various roles in the information interaction and retrieval process, being used for organising one’s own information items as well as for information sharing purposes. In the talk, a model of information behavior in tagging systems is given along with some data on typical tag usage and the relationship between tags and document content. In a broader perspective, I want to discuss some assumptions on future user needs in the context of “digital totality”: Given that all media are digitally available, how can the average user contribute towards interactive information retrieval? Literature Heckner, M., Mühlbacher, S., & Wolff, C. (2008). Tagging Tagging. Analysing user keywords in scientific bibliography management systems. Journal of Digital Information (JoDI), 9(27); http://journals.tdl.org/jodi/article/view/246/208 Heckner, M., Neubauer, T., & Wolff, C. (2008). Tree, funny, to_read, google: What are Tags Supposed to Achieve? A Comparative Analysis of User Keywords for Different Digital Resource Types Proc. ACM Workshop Search in Social Media, SSM '08, Held in conjunction with ACM 17th Conference on Information and Knowledge Management (CIKM), Napa Valley/CA. New York: ACM, http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1458583.1458589 Heckner, M., & Wolff, C. (2009). Towards Social Information Seeking and Interaction on the Web. In G. Hahn & R. Kuhlen (Eds.), Information: Droge, Ware oder Commons? Wertschöpfungs- und Transformationsprozesse auf den Informationsmärkten. Proc. 11. Internationales Symposium für Informationswissenschaft, Konstanz, April 2009. Boizenburg: vwh Verlag Werner Hülsbusch [im Druck].