#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.
- Take a look around Del.icio.us using the 27Things account (this will open in a separate window) that was created for this exercise.
- 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?
- 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?
Next up: Technorati…
6 comments:
David, you are a funny interviewer. :D
I am completely stumped by this lesson!
This seems to give a clue on how to organize our favorite things.
I think this is pretty interesting stuff. It seems like a form of outreach and libraries have been into that since the beginning of time!
Transcription of PODCAST #6 – Tagging is Del.icio.us
David: Hello everyone and welcome to week 6 of Learning 2.0. The theme for the week is … 3 words … Tagging, Technorati and Folksonomies. Now the last word is the one that binds everything together: Folksonomies. In the singular, a Folksonomy is an informal subject linking system that makes use of tags … or at least in the Web 2.0 environment. Now we’ve already seen this in play in Flickr – users tags their photos with keywords which link their related photos together; tags will also link their photos with photo of another user who uses the same tag. They are, thus, a great connecter between themes and users of similar interests and more importantly, they help you find things more quickly. Now this week we are going to be looking at tagging more closely -- we are going to define it, relate it to cataloging we’ve been doing in libraries for so long, and look at a few more applications that showcase “tag power”. Today we’ll look at Del.icio.us, tomorrow: Technorati and the day after, we’ll look at Library Thing. This week we have a special guest. We are most fortunate to be joined by an esteemed member of our elite cataloging staff: Libby McClean. Hello Libby.
Libby: Hello David
David: I asked you here today because no one understands the benefit of cataloging, better than a cataloger. And tagging is in essence another form of cataloging. So the first thing I’d like you to explain is what a Folksonomy is (and that’s what we are looking at this week) vs. the kind of cataloging we’ve done at libraries traditionally…. And I believe those are called Taxonomies.
Libby: Yes, a Folksonomy is tags or descriptors that are applied by ordinary users …
David: (or extra-ordinary users)
Libby: Yes (giggles) … rather than imposed by above by a cataloging agency, such as the Library of Congress.
David: So it’s not a controlled vocabulary … it’s an uncontrolled vocabulary.
Libby: Yes … it’s also more personal than the subject heading.
David: So it’s more informal.
Libby: It is more informal.
David: And it’s more based on what an individual user sees on a particular item that they are describing.
Libby: Yes.
David: Now though you may be thinking: Now if we could just have the users tag all of our items, why do we need to use the Library of Congress anymore?
Libby: Well, I think we are going to want to have both in our catalogues … especially since not all materials are going to be necessarily tagged by our users. So you are to need to have access to everything, tagged or not.
David: So what you are saying is, that book on fixing TV’s from 1942, might not actually get tagged by a user and we’ll have to use the LC (Library of Congress) subject headings to find it?
Libby: Yes
David: I would tag it with “old TVs”, “repair” and “fixin’ stuff” and that would be f-i-x-i-n-‘
Libby: Yes, I approve that.
David: Thank you very much. One of the applications we are going to be looking at this week is: Library Thing. And Library Thing is a website that lets you catalog your own books.
Libby: Oh, I love Library Thing. I’ve cataloged all my books at home.
David: ALL of your books?
Libby: All of my books.
David: So how many hours do you guess you’ve spent cataloging your books at home.
Libby: Probably 4-6 hours.
David: And there you have it folks, a dedicated professional.
Libby: Other than tagging your books in Library Thing, you can also rate your books, write book reviews, get recommendations from other users.
David: So the last word, Libby, then is: Tagging is good! And it can exist peacefully with our existing controlled vocabularies.
Libby: Yes
David: Excellent! Well thanks very much Libby for being here and thanks everyone for listening. The next Podcast will be on our website one week from today.
This is a very useful tool for organizing recipes or music or booklists etc. This looks very useful to me compared to myspace.
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