#12 - Tagging is Del.icio.us

This week we’ll be looking more closely at web 2.0 applications that take serious advantage of tagging (we've already looked at one - Flickr). Tagging, remember, allows you to associate keywords with online content - webpages, pictures, posts, etc. It is considered a folksonomy, AKA an unstructured categorization scheme.

Categorization scheme?

As a library employee you know a thing or two about these – we use the largest categorization scheme on the planet, Library of Congress subject headings. Library of Congress, though, is much more formalized and is considered a taxonomy.

This week we’ll look at still more innovative applications that take great advantage of tagging – Del.icio.us, Technorati, and Library Thing.

But before we get too deep in, though, let’s hear from a cataloger. In this week’s podcast David talks to Libby McClean about the intersection of tagging and traditional library cataloging, as well as her experience with Library Thing.

Click the Play button above
to hear this week's Podcast (3:18)
Del.icio.us

The specific focus of today's lesson is Del.icio.us. In addition to having a most excellent name (yes, that’s a real URL – the .us at the end stands for United States), Del.icio.us is a social bookmarking site that lets you save bookmarks to a central location (no more copying them to multiple browsers on multiple computers) and classify them all with tags.

How is that social?

Well, in addition to tagging your bookmarks, you get to see how other users have tagged the same links and see related websites are important to them. This is an excellent way to find websites that may be of interest to you.

Del.icio.us even offers RSS feeds - you can create a shared bookmark site (say, for your branch reference staff) and receive news every time a new link is added (say, when one of your colleagues adds a new link).

Give us twelve minutes.

We are going to cede to stage to Kathleen Gilroy who has posted an excellent video podcast on the subject – she’ll show you everything you’d want to know about Del.icio.us in just 12 minutes. Here’s the podcast link – it’ll open in a separate window. You’ll need to be on a computer with speakers or a headset.

And if you are on a computer without audio capabilities? Take a look at Us.ef.ul: A beginners guide to Del.icio.us.

Now that you are armed with this new and delicious knowledge (sorry, had to use the word as an adjective somewhere), you are ready for today’s Discovery Exercise.

1. Take a look around Del.icio.us using the 27Things account (this will open in a separate window) that was created for this exercise.
   
2. Explore the site options and try clicking on a bookmark that has also been bookmarked by a lot of other users (click on the text that reads 'saved by # other people'). Can you see the comments they added about this bookmark or the tags that they used to categorize this reference?
   
3. Create a blog post about your experience and thoughts about using this tool in libraries. Can you see the potential of this tool for research assistance? Or just as an easy way to create bookmarks that can be accessed from anywhere?
   

That, everyone, is all for today's lesson - thanks for completing another of the 27 things.

Next up: Technorati…