#9 Discover tagging and social bookmarking with del.icio.us

• Watch this video: Social Bookmarking in Plain English [3:25]

Tagging is a very easy tool for library staff to start using. Much like subject headings, tags are just keywords assigned to something—website bookmarks, pictures, blog posts, news articles, etc. For example, a bookmark for the Wake County Public Library website might be tagged with the words “wake”, “raleigh”, “library”, and “books”:

This is a portion of a tagged list of bookmarks
on the social bookmarking site del.icio.us

Or an online photo from a community college library might be tagged with the words “library” and “communitycollege”. On their own, individual item tags are not useful aside from helping to describe the item. However, once multiple items are tagged with the same words, finding what you want becomes much easier. If I have a collection of 2,341 pictures of libraries but only 19 of them are of community college libraries, then I could search for the tag “communitycollege” as a simple way of pulling out just the community college library pictures.

This is a tagged image from the photo sharing site Flickr.

There are no rules for what tags to use (unlike subject headings). I might tag the WCPL site with “library” and “wakecounty”, while someone else might tag it with “Raleigh” and “research”. Tags are more useful when they are used consistently, but it is up to the individual to tag their collection.

Anyone can create a collection of tagged photos or websites. For example, I can create a list of website bookmarks on the social bookmarking site del.icio.us (“social bookmarking” simply refers to sharing your bookmarks with others). I put my website bookmarks on the site and tag them however I want. If multiple sites are tagged with the keyword “library”, then clicking that tag will show only the sites in my list that also use that tag. Using tags this way can be an easy way to organize large lists of sites. Since the list itself is just a website, I can also view the list from any computer—which is much easier than trying to keep traditional browser bookmarks synchronized between multiple computers.

While private collections of things can be tagged (e.g. a photo organizing program on a home computer might offer tagging as a way to sort photos), public collections can also be tagged. By searching del.icio.us for sites that others have tagged with the same keywords, I can also discover websites that interest me and that I might not have seen before. For example, I could tag the PC Magazine website with the keyword “tech”. By searching for bookmarks that others have tagged with the same keyword, I can find other tech related websites that I might not have seen before.

Social bookmarking also makes it possible to find popular sites—I can search for the tag “tech” and see which sites have been tagged with that keyword by the largest number of users. Another interesting feature is the ability to see what specific users have bookmarked. For example, if the Wake County Public Library (username: wcpl) has a list of bookmarks on del.icio.us, anyone can see the list of bookmarks just by adding the username after the url—e.g. http://del.icio.us/wcpl. Friends and family can share lists like this with each other and complete strangers with common interests can also share their lists.

Tags are usually public, but they can also be marked as private on many sites. If I am researching lung cancer and would rather not have the world know I am bookmarking cancer sites, I can mark those bookmarks private and I am the only one who will see them in my list.

In the example illustrated below, I have added 32 bookmarks to the WCPL account on del.icio.us. Each entry shows the name of the site (e.g. “Yahoo! Sports”) and its associated tags (“yahoo” and “sports”). I can add or delete tags by clicking the “edit” link next to the name of the site or I can remove the bookmark completely by clicking the “delete” link. By clicking a tag in the tags list on the right, I can see all of the bookmarks that have that particular tag (e.g. there are 11 bookmarks tagged with “news”).


Things to try:

• Take a look at a short video (8 minutes) that explains how to use del.icio.us
  
  
• Head on over to the website and read the Getting Started page: http://del.icio.us/help/getstarted
  
  
• View the current list of bookmarks and tags for the WCPL account. Click the tags to see relevant bookmarks in the list.
  
  
• While still looking at the WCPL account, click on the “cloud” link under the Tags list to see the tags in a new way. Tag clouds show the tags in ABC order and also adjust the size and weight of the font to show which tags are used more often.
  
  
• Register for your own account and try adding some new bookmarks and tagging them. To add bookmarks, you will need to install the browser buttons for del.icio.us.
  
  
  If you see these buttons in your browser,
  the del.icio.us buttons have already been installed.
  
  
  If the buttons are not already installed, go to the Help page - look for the install the tools for saving bookmarks section.
  
  For Internet Explorer, click internet explorer buttons. For Firefox, click firefox extension. If you are an experienced Firefox user, try installing the *new* firefox bookmarks extension. All of the tags will then be conveniently listed in a sidebar on the left side of the browser.
  
  If you have any problems installing the buttons, check with your ERL or LIT or post a comment here.
  
  
• Try searching on some of the tags that you assigned to your new bookmarks to see what sites other people have applied those same tags.
  
  
• Don't forget to log out of your account when you are finished adding bookmarks. One way to do that is to go to the main del.icio.us page and click logout on the top right part of the screen.
  
  
• Post a comment telling us about your experience with del.icio.us. Did you find any interesting new sites? Do you think you will continue to use del.icio.us? And if you're willing, tell us where to find your del.ico.us account (e.g. http://del.icio.us/wcpl). Remember, you can choose to make any bookmarks private if you prefer not to have anyone else see them.