Thing #11-Tagging and Delicious

As a former children's librarian, (something I know I keep harping on...yada, yada, yada,) I see real value in tagging. The arcane rules of library subject headings were always beyond me, a mere public service librarian--little did I know of the mysterious ways of the catalogers once I barely survived my Intro to Cataloging class in library school. In the BI classes that I held for 5th and 6th graders I can still remember the kids' disbelief when trying to explain subject headings and see also references. "You mean someone just decides what word to use and that's the only one used?!?!" Tagging allows individuals to place a more common, more understood term to describe something, as well as multiple terms, and I think that is pretty nifty. I do feel, however, that some professional oversight for official contents, ie.a library's online catalog, would be helpful if it didn't become too overwhelming. I know that part of 2.0 is to trust the user and that includes whatever tags they might like to add--but I think some official content needs to be known for being reliable, and I wouldn't want inaccurate tags misleading people on a library catalog. It's good that one of the tasks was to go back and add some tags to blog posts, as I missed some for my past postings.

I also liked the idea of Delicious as well (note I'm spelling without the periods--too much trouble!) Again, I see a recurring thread in what I personally find useful in the 2.0 tools--and anything that can be accessed and shared on the web appeals to me, as I often find myself using different computers at different locations when traveling, working different reference desks, etc. It was interesting to explore the Minn23 bookmarks on Delicious, and it was fun to search by tags. I chose to search the Web 2.0 tag, and looked at a bookmark for "Three Awesome Sites". One of the sites was called Buddy Stumbler , and it allowed one to put in some criteria for locating personal web pages of people who match the criteria so that one could then presumably get in touch with those individuals they chose to follow up on. There was a great quote on the site that said "I search, therefore IM". Pretty clever! I also looked at the San Mateo Public Library's bookmarks, to see if I could get a sense of what research enhancements Delicious may offer library patrons. I liked the New Books page--but it seems like unless all of your patrons are using Delicious they are more likely to look for these kinds of bookmarks on the Library's own web page. But perhaps that is my problem--I am still coming into this information the old-fashioned way, and all the Web 2.0ers go to Delicious to find out stuff! I did not create my own account on Delicious at this point in time, but I see the value.