Social Bookmarking - Assignment 3

Well I am really late with this , currently running at least a week behind, but perhaps that is a sign of the times for me. I may be struggling to keep up but I get there in the end - Hare and Tortoise spring to mind.



To recap as I see it - We've set up our blogs and started locating and using RSS feeds. We've looked at each others blogs and made comments - a bit of social networking perhaps. We have transferred our ideas into a library setting ( In my imagiantion) and all is well so far. We now want and expect our users to join in. That presupposes our users are interested or even know what we are talking about.



So what is Social Bookmarking - it's not only a way of highlighting relevant pages for our users but a way to encourage them to join the information world and share what they know by using any of the bookmarking tools out there!!!

WE have del.icio.us to link us to useful websites and this is one that I am trying to remember to use myself. It is easy to use and does help me keep my favourites in one easily accessible place so it is one I will try and introduce to library staff before I explore the knowledge base known as health professionals.

Citeulike is recommended for collecting articles - I have been asked in the past about collection/referencing tools so this is one I will be looking at in more depth as a solution.

Library thing was interesting - but I found so many categories that I was spoilt for choice. After spending ages trying to decide which group I would like tio investigate further I gave up out of sheer frustration at my own inability to keep on one track at a time - it was so easy to keep getting sidelined by anything I found remotely interesting. Not sure how this would transfer into the health library setting.

43 things - life goals - was another site that I could have spent ages on - My interest in people (some would say I was nosey) kept me on this site for ages - some people have such dreams and aspirations and whilst I was so envious of some of the 'things' achieved - I did want to scream at some of them to get a life. Don't think I will be joining this group - prefere to keep my dreams private thank you.

Having explored Social bookmarking and tools I was a bit unsure about Folsonomies - correct me if I am wrong but does this mean tagging any sites/links/hits /favourites/whatever with your own keyword. A way of collecting/storing/bunching/filing informatiom by using words that you personally use and that mean something to you - your own interpretation? Does this mean we are then going to see more local dialects/slangs/quips be used because I have only just come to grips with certain terms and phrases used in the Black Country and I have been married to a Black Country man for over 30 years.

I can see the reasoning behind it and in a way I think it a good idea - but where will it end, what about control. As a librarian I am worried about the mish mash of search terms that appear and that it will only make searching for information more confusing for the user - We have spent years trying to educate them to search under our accepted terms and now we are saying - hey forget all that lets use any term you can think of and lets see what we can find - but don't forget to mark it so someone else can use a term they never thought of to look for something they don't want.