Saturday, November 3, 2007

Just another thought: del.icio.us is delicious

I like del.icio.us. I guess it's partly because I like the tag concept - not just the idea that anyone can use whatever words he or she wants to describe what a page is about (yes, LCSH looks a bit staid), but also the tag cloud with each tag sized according to how much it's been used, and the fact that these tags (or bookmarks/favourites/whatever) are available to me wherever I can get internet access. I also like the idea that I'm in control and it's so easy to go to a list of just the sites that are about whatever I'm interested in at the moment. And I see from Kathryn's last 23 things email that you can import your bookmarks! That's clever.
So how could we use social bookmarking and tags in libraries? I do like the idea of adding tags to catalogue records. You have the quality control that a well-made catalogue record provides, AND the words that users use to describe whatever the users think of the item that the record represents.
Perhaps subject web pages could use tags as well?
One site that's been around for a while is Connotea, described as "Free online reference management for all researchers, clinicians and scientistsCompletely free, no download".
Then there's 2collab (I've already posted about this). Note that it doesn't seem to work with Firefox (well, it didn't for me).
So where is my del.icio.us page? It's right here.
Update 21/11/08: I've added the Delicious badge to my blog!

And I've discovered how to add people to my network! Thanks, Kate! Or should that be, "Thanks, 23katethings"!

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