Part of the CJRLC Tech Challenge is to explore the site del.icio.us, which is a tool that essentially allows users to bookmark and catalog sites on a web-based platform. Sounds pretty dull, huh? Well, there are two 2.0 elements that make del.icio.us a sneaky cool service.
The first is tagging. When someone decides to bookmark a site using their del.icio.us account, they get the opportunity to add subject headings (called tags) – of their own choosing. If someone were going to tag this site, they might attach descriptive words like “CJRLC” or “blog” or “library 2.0″. The possibilities are endless and there’s no authority file like in traditional cataloging. The tags are then fully searchable. Moreover, the results can be displayed in terms of “tag clouds”, where the frequency of tag is represented by font size (the more times a tag is used, the large it’s font) – a wonderful tool for the visual thinker.
(This blog also uses tagging. At the end of each post are a few words — those are the tags I found best described that post. Clicking on the tag will bring up all the posts tagged with that word. )
The second 2.0 element is social bookmarking. The idea of del.icio.us is that users will share the sites they’ve bookmarked and tagged with anyone who visits the site. Users can search across all the tags used and then see how many people have bookmarked and tagged each site in the results. Account holders can make their bookmarks public for others to view, so friends can share their favorite sites.
Signing up for del.icio.us is as easy as providing a user name and email address and picking a password!
Tagging and social bookmarking are 2 trends picking up speed in libraryland. How each of these can be applied to libraries will be addressed in Part II.
Filed under: del.icio.us, tagging
