Task 5: Social Bookmarking - Tagging, Folksonomies and del.icio.us

Tagging is an open and informal method of categorizing that allows users to associate keywords with online content (webpages, pictures & posts). Unlike library subject cataloging, which follows a strict set of guidelines (i.e. Library of Congress subject headings), tagging is completely unstructured and freeform, allowing users to create connections between data anyway they want. You should be familiar with tags from the previous task on flickr, where you could associate keyword tags with photographs.

When you have a large number of people contributing tags to describe and organise content you end up with something that is commonly described as a folksonomy (as opposed to a taxonomy, which is based on a controlled, systematic application of categories by experts).

Del.icio.us is a popular social bookmarking tool that allows you to save and share your favourite web sites online. Its most basic advantage over browser based bookmarks is that you can access your favourites from any computer connected to the Internet. But it offers so much more. You can describe your bookmarks using tags to make them easy to find later, you can share them with friends, you can see how others have described the same site and explore other sites with the same tags. You can also see how popular a particular site is giving some indication of its value/quality or look for new sites based on what others have bookmarked.

In this task you will explore del.icio.us and learn about this powerful tool. Before you start you might want to take a look at this Social Bookmarking in Plain English, a short video tutorial explaining what del.icio.us is and how it works.



First...
Take some time to explore del.icio.us. Check out the Library's bookmarks at http://del.icio.us/suthlib.

1. Click on a tag from the list on the right.
2. What sites have we bookmarked using this tag?View all pages that have this tag, view popular pages that have this tag.
3. Are there any sites listed that look helpful? Pick a site and see who else has bookmarked it?
4. Explore their bookmarks. Can you see how the network can lead you to new discoveries?

Next...
Login to del.icio.us with the Sutherland Shire Libraries Learning 2.0 account. The Username is ssclearning2 and the password is 123discover. Bookmark your blog and tag it with blog.

1. Click on the Post link at the top of the page
2. Type (or copy and paste) the URL of your blog in to the box.
3. Describe your blog. The title of the blog goes in the Description field. Provide a summary in the notes field. Add keywords to the tag field, just be sure to add blog as one of them.
4. Save the bookmark.

In a little while you should see your blog show up in the list of participants blogs on the sidebar (psst... over there --->)

Then...
Using tags is a new way to categorise content. This calls for new ways to explore that content. One way is through tag clouds. Tag Clouds are a display of tags where size reflects popularity. Take a look at the most popular tags on del.icio.us as a cloud. Flickr also has a tag cloud for its most popular tags.

Finally...
Add a post to your blog about any aspect of del.icio.us or tagging in general. Eg. How could libraries make use of del.icio.us? What if library members could tag books on our catalogue? (it’s happening at Ann Arbor District Library in the US!)

Extension...
Some exercises to develop your understanding of del.icio.us even more.

1. Find out how to do even more with del.icio.us by reading The Several Habits of Wildly Successful del.icio.us Users.
2. Sign up for your own del.icio.us account and start bookmarking!
3. Try displaying your bookmarks outside del.icio.us.* You can use the linkroll feature to create a bit of web code to paste into your blog template. If your using Blogger: edit the template, add page element and choose html/javascript element type. Alternatively, copy the feed from the bottom of any del.cio.us page and use Blogger's site feed page element. Check out Blogger's Layout Guide for more help.

*Note: The Web Resources on the Library web site are taken directly from del.icio.us bookmarks using these tools.