Social bookmarking and tagging

Social bookmarking websites such as Deli.cio.us are useful on so many levels, starting with simply bookmarking articles and web pages that one wants to remember and save. Beyond the simple act of bookmarking, tagging bookmarks can reveal a whole new level of possibilities. Tagging one’s bookmarks not only increases the personal findability of articles by topic, by opens up the “social” part of social bookmarking in that one can see who else bookmarked the same link and view that person’s bookmarks, which could be related in subject matter. As Meredith Farkas states in her text, “social bookmarking can lead to the discovery of other useful resources” (Farkas, 2007).

Exploring beyond your own bookmarks is an essential feature of social bookmarking. One can click on a tag and search across users for similarly tagged articles, or one can click on a username and browse that person’s bookmarks. Also, one can subscribe to an RSS feed of a certain tag to see what articles people are tagging with the specific term.

Some uses for social bookmarking in the library are to tag items for patrons and create subject guides. Social bookmarking subject guides can include keywords that aren’t necessarily taken from a controlled vocabulary. In Melissa Rethlefsen’s article Tags Help Make Libraries Del.icio.us, she notes that “tagging is often controversial among librarians, largely because adding keywords to resources lacks authority control” (Rethlefson, 2007). On the upside, she states that tagging “lowers barriers for participation, both for library patrons and staff,” meaning the everyday language of tags encourages participation from library users, who could even suggest links of subject keywords. “Task tagging” is another useful way to tag items for a specific purpose or audience. Academic librarians can tag specific links for specific classes, or organize links by class subject.

In all, librarians and other social bookmarking participants are still discovering the many uses of sites like Del.icio.us.

Farkas, M. (2007). Social Software In Libraries. Medford, NJ: Information Today.

Rethlefsen, M. (2007). Tags help make libraries Del.icio.us. Library Journal, 9/15/2007. Retrieved from http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6476403.html.