Tagging, Bookmarking, and Social Networking

Week Four, July 10

Housekeeping Any questions from last week? Any topic suggestions?

Tagging What are tags?

› In library-friendly terms, tags are pieces of metadata; they are data about data!

› In layman’s terms, they are descriptive terms attached to an object, like photos, movies, blog posts, etc.

› They allow information to be grouped, sorted, and accessed more readily than it would be otherwise

Examples of Tags

Taken from http://aadl.org with the Ann Arbor District Library at http://www.aadl.org/catalog/record/1232895

Taken from Flickr at http://www.flickr.com/photos/teddyllovet/4492045367/

How do libraries fit in? Because tagging helps to organize and group

large amounts of information, it can be very useful to libraries (who usually have large amounts of information!)

Tagging can be enabled for public use on library sites, helping patrons to help each other and librarians by assigning descriptions that can help with:› Readers’ advisory› Making lists› Collection development› Patron interest and participation

Exercise Log onto Flickr with the class account

information and assign 3 new tags to a photo

Bookmarking What is bookmarking?

› Bookmarking may be a familiar function, as many times we save websites to a list within our browsers so that we don’t always have to type in full URLs.

› It can be use privately for your home computer, like if you bookmark the Library Technology page on the NNMC site so you can reference your requirements when necessary.

› It can be used in a more public forum, such as online bookmarking resources like del.icio.us

Social bookmarking and del.icio.us

Advantages of social bookmarking:› It is easier to share interesting pages with

large groups of networked people› It is easier to keep up with trends› It can be a good way to find new and

interesting things for your library!

Walk-through Demonstration of adding a bookmark

to Del.icio.us Those with a Yahoo account may also

participate on their own computer

Social Networking We have already talked about the

different kinds of web presences a library may maintain through various media – social networking helps to promote that material!

Top sites for social networking at present:› Facebook› Twitter› Myspace

Facebook Created at Harvard several years ago, and

originally required a college email address to join

Used by such organizations as the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), National Public Radio (NPR), and the Library of Congress

Lets users share photos, limited video, “notes” (akin to blog entries), and applications

Homepage includes a “feed” of network entries, much like an aggregator does for RSS feeds

Twitter Rapidly gaining popularity with short

“status” updates that do not exceed 140 characters in length

Very popular amongst smart-phone users

Can be linked with Facebook @ tags users to get people’s attention

Myspace Seems to be on its way out. Just as

there are still miraculously people at Friendster, some will cling to Myspace, but most official presences have migrated to Facebook and Twitter

Easier to maintain anonymity Seems to appeal to younger crowds

Additional notes Remember Friendster? Or AOL? It can

be important to keep up with trends so as not to lose your audience!

Be open to trying new things, and to accept the possibility that not all venues will be long-lived (I am amazed that my Friendster account still exists)

What’s next? Will there ever be a site that meets the

needs for blogging, storage, tags, bookmarking, and social networking all together?

Increased opportunities for user participation (Web 2.0 growth) and content generation