Week 7 - Folksonomies and social bookmarking

Thing 10 - Tagging with Del.icio.us

Contrary to the more formal ways of describing content (e.g. by using Sears Subject Headings) user tagging doesn't have formal rules nor a controlled vocabulary. This is where the term folksonomy comes in. Just like a folks song a folksonomy is created for the people by the people whereas the more formal taxonomy is created by scientists and subject matter experts. Tagging content such as photos (recall Flickr), books you have read (LibraryThing) or blogs (see the tags I've added to this post) is typical for Web 2.0. because tags facilitate information sharing, social networking, and collaboration between users.

You can also tag and share the bookmarks you create on the Web. Imagine you are really interested in reading programs in school libraries. Wouldn't it be nice to see whether anybody has already found good websites on that topic? It would be even nice to see websites that a lot of people have tagged "reading programs"? This week we explore a social bookmarking website called del.icio.us. To learn more about del.icio.us read information shared in learn more.

Once you join del.icio.us you can create bookmarks and tag them with your very own tags (subjects) to categorize your bookmarks. You can also search all tags people have used to find more interesting bookmarks. Another benefit of having your bookmarks with del.icio.us is that if you move computers, you can still get to all your bookmarks! Del.icio.us is not the only social bookmarking site. Some people prefer to use diigo.

Thing 10 Learning 2.0 Tasks

1. Check out this great 8 minute video on del.icio.us. It shows how to traverse del.iciou.us and find good stuff.
2. Go to del.icio.us and explore what you can do there. Think about uses of del.icio.us for your library. One obvious use would be to create lists of links on certain topics and make them available to your users on your blog or wiki.
3. Find a popular bookmark and read the tags and sometimes comments people have added.
4. Write a blog post about your del.icio.us experience and how you might want to use it for your research or in your library.


Thing 11 - Exploring Technorati

We have added several blogs to the blogosphere joining the millions of blogs already out there. Technorati is a search tool especially tailored to blogs. It can help you find blogs on particular topics and even individual blog postings. In addition to the search function Technorati also has a blog directory organized by topic where you can browse for blogs of interest.

Technorati also keeps track of the top 100 most influential blogs and calculates an authority number based on the number of people linking to a particular blog. A blog with a high authority number is considered more trustworthy than the average blog.

Once you create your own blog (not as a class asignment) and you have something to say that might interest others you can tell technorati about your blog so it will be indexed. This is called claiming your blog.

Thing 11 Learning 2.0 Tasks

1. Go to Technorati's blog directory and study the different categories. What categories are very well represented? What categories are lacking?
2. Try out the two different search options (blogs versus blog postings) to find blogs and blog postings on a topic of interest. Did you get different results?
3. Write a blog post about your Technorati experience.


Thing 12 - Web 2.0 and Library 2.0

Just like Web 2.0 where users are more involved in the creation and sharing of content Library 2.0 tries to do the same thing by changing library services. What does this mean for the School Library Media Center?

Thing 12 Learning 2.0 Tasks

1. Read the the article by Christopher Harris in School Library Journal and blog about your thought concerning library 2.0 for school libraries.