Thing #13: Del.icio.us

I signed up for a Del.icio.us account. I'm not sure how helpful this will be at work, where all computers I use are shared computers, but we shall see. I can see where the clouds of tags would be helpful to people looking for information on a particular topic. I like the way TCNJ used their cloud AFTER the breakdown of specific subject links, so that those looking for further information can follow the tags, or explore on their own. Tagging seems a very fluid manner of seeking information, not concrete or lineal, which is perhaps how my brain works or how I have been trained. If someone contacts reference with a specific question, I would prefer to know where I can immediately find the answer, and not chase after tags. Stafford did a great job with their summer reading links and tags, makes much more sense to me, and seems a more viable way of information seeking and providing behavior.

Trying to use Del.icio.us isn't really intuitive for me (old dog, new tricks?). But when I searched Del.icio.us for topics of interest to me, knitting pulled up nearly 60k links, and genealogy 45k. That's a LOT of links! But an interesting feature is that it shows you how many people have saved that link/bookmark/favorite. When you click on that particular link, it opens a page that shows you a cloud tag of related terms, user notes, and posting history. You can follow these links for further information, both about the poster and the topic.