Week 3 Tagging, Folksonomies & Technorati

Table of Contents

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5. Learn about tagging and discover Delicious (a social bookmaking site)

Estimate of time: 1 hour

Overview

Have you ever been away from your computer and needed to access a site that is in your Firefox Bookmarks or Internet Explorer Favorites? Rather than having those listings be tied to one computer, why not keep them all in one place online? You'll never have to go searching for the web address for your favorite sites again.

Delicious is one example of a Social Bookmarking site. In addition to the convenience of storing your bookmarks, it allows you to leverage the power of a social network for discovering other great sites, and also allows you to organize them all using tags.  

Benefits

  • Never be tied to one computer or browser anymore! Store your favorite sites online
  • Find others that have common interests and review the sites they have saved (you may just find a few that interest you that you have missed)
  • Organize and discover new sites based on the tags that you and others have chosen to describe sites

Perspectives

  • View the short (00:03:25) overview video "Social Bookmarking in Plain English" created by CommonCraft
  • Read the "Social Bookmarking" entry on Wikipedia for some more background on the subject and history of social bookmarking
  • Watch a longer introductory tutorial, either here (TechBites 00:09:53) or here (00:07:42)
  • For a longer discussion and review of multiple tools, read this article from D-lib magazine

Discovery

  1. Start by browsing to Delicious
  2. In the upper right hand corner, try typing something in the search box. For instance, try "Special Libraries Association" or "Library 2.0" and click "Search."
  3. Look at one of the results. The title is a link to the website that is bookmarked. After the title, there is a link that allows you to 'Save this' in your personal bookmarks. At the end of each record is a link that says "Saved by XX people." Click this link to see who else has bookmarked the site. In general, the higher the number of people who have saved a link is an indicator of a site's usefulness and relevance related to particular topic.
  4. After clicking the "Saved by" link, you will be looking at a list of users that have saved it, along with any notes they have written about the site in question. On the right side of the screen is a list of users that have bookmarked the site along with the link to the specific tags that describe similar sites in their collection. Click one of these tags to find other sites a person has decided are similar in scope.
  5. Go back to the search box and try a few different searches. Explore the vast array of pages linked through del.icio.us.

Reflections: Localize your learnings

  • Blog your reactions to your time spent exploring this social bookmarking site.
  • Do you think that using tags is a good way to organize your bookmarks?
  • Were you able to find sites which you were previously unaware of through delicious?
  • What do you think is the biggest advantage/disadvantage of using delicious?
  • Do you think you will be able to use this in your professional setting? Why or why not? 

Challenge

In the "Discovery" portion of this module, we explored the "social" aspect of social bookmarking by searching the network of other people's bookmarks. Now it is time to create your own. 

  1. Sign up for an account on Delicious
  2. Install the browser bookmark extension buttons for easy tagging of sites or viewing your saved favorites. See Delicious Help >> Bookmarking >> select the appropriate extension for Firefox or IE. Check out this link for Safari users!
  3. Bookmark your blog and add SLA23Things as a tag. If your blog is open, it will appear in our RSS feed on the 23 Things home page and enable us to more easily share our learnings with each other.
  4. Begin to bookmark other sites of interest. Be sure to remember to use tags to organize them!

6. Blog directories, Folksonomies and Tags, oh my!

Estimate of time: 2 hours

Overview

Now that you've gotten your feet wet in the world of blogging, it's time to learn to find your way around the "blogosphere!" It doesn't take long to go from "gee, this is fun" to "how do I find out who else is blogging and are there blogs in my areas of interest?"

Technorati was one of the first searchable blog directories available online, and it still reigns supreme - providing users with the ability to search blogs.  In fact, Technorati was upgraded and revised in October 2009, and the changes made to the site's interface are certainly more user-friendly. You can also "claim" or register your blog through Technorati and other blog services, which will increase your blog's visibility in the blogosphere.

Benefits

Libraries and corporations alike are embedding social technologies into their enterprise systems. Knowing about them will not only help you to provide services to your clients in new and relevant ways, but it will also enable you to provide instruction to them on how to best utilize these tools for their own needs.

Perspectives

Discovery

  1. On the home page, check out the tabs for "Blog Directory" and "Top 100" to get a feel for the variety of topics included in Technorati's arsenal of information.
  2. Scroll down and look at the "Hottest blogosphere items" - What are bloggers talking the most about right now?
  3. Click on some of the top blogs and examine their tags. Note the use of everyday language in the tagging - this is called a "folksonomy."
  4. On the homepage, try typing "libraries" into the search field. Make sure that you click on the small "Blogs" box to ensure the right results.  Note that several thousand blogs relating to libraries appear; while some of these are personal collections, others belong to institutions and organizations.
  5. Take some time to browse the results of your search.  What types of blogs do you see that appeal to you or your library?
  6. To join Technorati, simply fill out the brief form found by clicking the "Join" link directly to the right of the search box.

Reflections: Localize your learnings

  • What value does a tool like Technorati offer your library?
  • Does the ability to monitor people's conversations and the tags people are applying to their content offer additional research portals for your products and services?
  • How could you incorporate information Technorati offers into the research delivered to your users?
  • How would you maintain authority and reliability of information pulled from this resource?

Challenge

There are other blog directories and tools that serve different functions in the blogging world. Try some of these to get an idea of what's out there:

  1. Spend some time browsing through Yahoo's blog directory. Suggestions: Explore "Blog Directories" and "Collaborative Weblogs."
  2. Go to Icerocket and click on "Blog Tracker." What benefit does this service provide to bloggers?
  3. Check out Google's blog directory. Click on the word "Collaborative" and then on "Library and Information Science"

7. Read a few perspectives on Web 2.0, Library 2.0 and the future of libraries and blog your thoughts.

Estimate of time: 1-2 hours

Overview

As technology continues to evolve to accommodate social collaboration and innovation, the world becomes "flatter" and more connected. You've already touched many of the new ways that people are sharing photos, videos, blogged thoughts and experiences, and connection with their network of contacts. Global companies have invited consumers to collaborate openly in the development of products and marketing organizations are learning to involve consumers in interactive experiences with their brands.

As the world becomes more mobile and less confined to physical spaces and its data more digitized and accessible through technologies that support open access and collaboration, library services will continue to evolve to meet the needs of its consumers. In fact, enabling the sharing of information has been the primary mission of libraries since their inception, so many view this workflow as a natural extension of library services. This new role of libraries reaching their relevant stakeholders by incorporating the continuously evolving world of Web 2.0 is referred to as "Library 2.0."

Benefits

Web 2.0 Technologies aren't going away. They will continue to evolve and bring us new ways of working, reaching out and servicing our clients' needs. Joining the conversation and networking with others in our field about how they are incorporating these capabilities into their work will go a long way toward our continued professional development.

Perspectives

Discovery

  1. Read Wikipedia's description of Library 2.0.
  2. Go to Ning's community space Library 2.0 enthusiasts and browse around to see what librarians are sharing and talking about.
  3. On Library Journal's website, read about the Library 2.0 Gang and check out other Library 2.0 happenings from Library Journal

Reflections: Localize your learnings

  • Blog your thoughts about Library 2.0, Web 2.0 and libraries of the future.
  • How do you plan to incorporate Web 2.0 tools and technologies into your products and services?
  • How do you maintain high quality products and services if anyone can add content to your resources?

Challenge

  • Get involved in the Library 2.0 discussions by joining one of the communities dedicated to this domain listed above.

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