Week 4 - Tagging

This task was to explore del.icio.us, a social bookmarking site. I have had an account for nearly a year, which was created for a workshop. I thought it would be great to access my bokmarks from anywhere. I moved some of my personal bookmarks over, tagged them, and just never went back. It seemed like too much work, the tagging didn't really fit my needs, and I was very used to my folder arrangement in my Favorites.

So, I wasn't really looking forward to this task. However, I created a second account, intending, as with my RSS feeds (BTW, I have changed my mind and am planning on keeping my Google Reader account for professional feeds and also my Bloglines account for personal feeds, go me!) to use this second account for professional bookmarks. I have started moving my favorites over, as well as some pages from starred blogs in Google Reader.

The first thing I noticed, was that I have literally hundreds of bookmarks! It was a good excuse to clear out sites I had never returned to and to re-acquaint myself with sites I had forgotten. The only problem is that this takes time! A lot of time! I am going to be doing this for weeks! Literally! *sigh*

However, I am determined to keep this up and to even go through my sites regularly to keep them up-to-date and really useful. And, another side benefit is getting my Favorites down to those I use regularly. I just find folders quicker and easier.


What are the potentials for using Del.icio.us as a research assistance tool?
The potentials are many, but one first has to get used to utilizing tags and not get hung up on the vast and seemingly unorganized list of sites. At least that's what I needed to do - get myself out of the old folder mindset and into the tag mindset. Once you have a number of sites listed and tags assigned, you can see that other people have tagged the same site. By following the links to those users, you can see what other sites they have bookmarked. Looking through those sites, you may find ones that fits your research needs that you didn't know about. Unfortunately, this can be addictive and you could find yourself immersed in new sites for big chunks of time. :-)

Is Del.icio.us just an easy way to create bookmarks that can be accessed from anywhere?
No, although that is certainly one of its main uses. You might find a site at home that would be useful at work and vice versa. You might locate a source while traveling, at a friend's home, in an internet cafe, in an email that you would love to revist or checkout, but you are not at your computer or you don't have the time. Saving a site to del.icio.us lets it be accessible anywhere at any time. However, it is the social interaction, the potentials for discovery that make del.icio.us so valuable.

Can you see how public tags allow information discovery?
As I described above, by following tags to users to other sites, you can locate sources you previously did not know existed. In essence, we, the public, all of us, are helping each other discover new sources of information and entertainment.

Does this seem useful to you?
Sure, why not? It's perhaps not as focused as direct research, but discovery allows for a personal level of exploration and serendipity that focused research does not.

What was the most interesting thing you learned?
Hmmmm, well, the most interesting things I learned were that del.icio.us is not the most intuitive of sites and that tags are both a blessing and a curse. First, adding the del.icio.us buttons to your tool bar is absolutely the best move you can make. It is sooo easy to tag a site as you visit it. However, when looking at my favorites, I can see that sometimes, what appears instead of the site's title is it's URL, a confusing string of letters and numbers. So, be careful when you tag a site to make sure that the DESCRIPTION is the site's title. Believe me, you'll be much happier (Luckily, you can go back and edit it later, but getting into the habit of doing it as you tag the site just makes it easier.) Also, it is a shame that favorites cannot be sorted alphabetically; they can only be displayed chronologically, with the most recently added on top (don't site designers learn anything from libraries?)

Then there are the tags. Allowing multiple tags means that you can access a site from several different subjects, instead of the single one allowed in a folder arrangement (unless you put the same site in several folders.) And, you can choose tags that are meaningful to you. After all, not everyone thinks in LC subject headings. Now here comes the curse - with everyone using the keywords that they choose, you can have a site tagged with: blog, blogs, blogging, blogger, bloggers, Blog......you get the idea. It means that when you use a tag to search, you may have to search all variants of the tag to get a full range of sites. *can you say information overload?* Maybe there is a reason for those LC headings.

What are some of the ways in which the Arcadia Public Library can take advantage of social bookmarking sites?
1. Staff members can create their own lists of sites useful in their own work tasks. These can be assessible whether at their own work stations or at the public desks; in effect, all staff working at the Children's Desk, for example, can have access to their own favorites.
2. Staff can combine their favorites into a section del.icio.us list. Using tags, staff members can assign meaningful and individual keywords to each site.
3. Links on the Library's site can point to these section pages for the public to take advantage of the research expertise of informaiton professionals.

I didn't have time to check out any additional bookmarking sites - something for a future challenge? However, I have started to tag my messages in my gmail accounts. I can then archive those I really want to keep and delete those I really don't need; maybe I can get my inbox down to a manageable level (do you think 400+ messages is too much? for one account?) *sigh*

And finally (are you still with me?) the issue of tags is an important one. Many sites are already heavily into tags - LJ, Amazon, YouTube, Flickr, this blog are just some I use regularly. Some libraries are even starting to allow tagging in their catalogs. You know, the web and the way we use it is going to change with or without us, so perhaps we had better just go ahead and take that leap of faith. :-)