So del.icio.us!

OK, so I have been tagging the odd article on del.icio.us
for this class as I have come across articles or websites that would be of
interest to the class. However, until I read the articles for this week, I
really didn’t know that the tagging we were doing to these links were actually
being used to help other users of del.icio.us search for things, too. So, by my
estimation, I am practicing the spirit of librarianship even when I’m sleeping!
I am so helpful.

Seriously, this is something spectacular as each person’s
interpretation of an article or website has a specific meaning to them, and by
adding our own personal touch, or tag, to the site on del.icio.us, we are
helping others all over the globe to find material that means something to them
because of the lingo we are using with our tags. Sure, there are words that we
will use as tags that have different meanings to others (the many uses of ‘roman’
in Rainie’s interview with Weinberger, for instance), but surely by using more
than one tag per article or site, we can narrow down what the site represents
to us, and in that way, other users will be able to only find links to those
sites that meet their criteria (I am going to use a sports example here, but,
lets say that I find a particular article on my favourite football team and how
awful they have been lately, and I tag it with ‘Chiefs’ and ‘stink’. Now,
hopefully, any native Indians who read this won’t be offended, but if they were
to just see those two words, they might think I am tagging the article to say
that Indian Chiefs have a body odour problem, which would be negligent and lazy
on my part. Now, by being more specific and adding other keyword tags, such as ‘Kansas
City’, ‘2008’, and ‘NFL’, I have rectified the problem and made this much
easier to find for true football fans, and have avoided offending any of our
native friends). With del.icio.us, we hold the power, and we should be clear
and succinct in how we use this power.

In a library setting, I have a great idea for how del.icio.us
could be used. Currently in my department at work (Children’s Dept. at a public
library), our supervisor passes along a myriad amount of articles that she has
seen in journals or newspapers or online, and a single print copy is always
circulated to all in the department to read and initial that we have done so.
On top of that, no one else in the department seems to find articles of
interest to pass along, possibly because of the arduous process involved. So,
if our department were encouraged to post appropriate materials on del.icio.us,
it would be a win-win situation, as the supervisor could see who is posting
what, it would save paper, and everyone in the department would feel good about
themselves for being able to find and post material relevant to the work we do.
This seems to me to be much simpler than reading journal after journal in hopes
of stumbling across something relevant and then having someone else photocopy
it (once) and then pass it around for all to see. Clearly, this is a very
modern and efficient way to keep our department in touch with what is happening
in Children’s librarianship.