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Why You Need Del.icio.us (And How to Use It!)
March 14, 2007
Will Richardson, a most excellent educational blogger, wrote an article in the March issue of SLJ about using social bookmarking to tame the wilds of the Internet. One of the tools he recommends in the article is called Del.icio.us (http://del.icio.us is actually the website address). This is one of the better examples of a social bookmarking site that allows users to collectively bookmark and share websites that they find. As Will explains in his article:
"In a nutshell, the operating principle behind these concepts is this: if I find something interesting enough to save., odds are good that you will, too. And together, using these tools, we can build comprehensive resource lists much more effectively than any one of us could working alone" [SLJ]
So how does this work?
- Head on over to del.icio.us and either login or create a new account
- Add the bookmarklet link to your browser for one-click saving of the website you are currently viewing. There are also special toolbars for Firefox and Internet Explorer.
- Browse to a website that you would like to save in your new Del.icio.us list and use the bookmarklet from the previous step to save it to your favorites.
- When you save a page, you will notice that it automatically adds the page title and address. More importantly, though, it also gives you a chance to add tags. [Tags are what make social bookmarking sites like Del.icio.us work. They are an informal way of categorizing content with user-generated subject words. As I have defined them in the past, our library subject headings may be more precise, but tags can somtimes be more correct.]
- After saving the bookmark to your Del.icio.us favorites, you can continue to browse for additional sites. When you are ready, you can log back in to your Del.icio.us account from any computer connected to the Internet and have easy access to all of your favorites!
- And don't forget: As Will noted, the added bonus of social bookmarking is that you can look at sites that other people on Del.icio.us are adding to their favorites using the same tags that you used. For example, you could view all websites tagged "schoollibrary" by going to http://del.icio.us/tag/schoollibrary.
Good luck, and happy social bookmarking! Please note that Del.icio.us is an open system and so may contain links to sites that are not appropriate for school use. I would still suggest that social bookmarking is a powerful tool that can be very useful. Are you using social bookmarking in your library? Do you have some additional tips or tricks to share by leaving a comment?
Posted by Chris Harris on March 14, 2007 | Comments (1)
