Social Bookmarking Delicious Thing 10

Today I discovered and explored the world of social bookmarking. I did this via the Delicious website.

First I had a look via the account of 23Dingen. I saved a new bookmark by adding it with the URL. I also had a look at some networks, and the tags that were used.

It is always interesting to see the tags that people use to retrieve their data. While studying library and information science I used Sears list of Subject Headings. I have also used this dedicatedly during my career as librarian and information specialist. I also stick to this when tagging websites of photos.

So it is very frustrating to me when I see the clutter caused by free tagging! The spelling mistakes! The UK vs. USA use of English. To name just two aspects.

It really goes wrong when people have the option of “bulk tagging”. Doing a photo search via a tag and then finding irrelevant and unusable information. It always start out reasonably well, but as the number of members/users increase the percentage of clutter increase.

Then I remember that now it is all about “Social networking” and not about accuracy and quality of feedback.

But I must admit that one does find some useful information and links! Using a tool like Delcious one can easily manage one’s own favourite websites and links.

Professional use of social networking and bookmarking in the library? Combined with RSS feed it could be of value to keep up to date with recent developments and interesting library and information news articles.

So to conclude my opinion on social bookmarking: I will take a deep breath and continue to follow the guidelines that I have had acquired during my training and let other people do whatever they want, in the name of “Social Networking”