Social Bookmarking

Another first in my adventures with Library 2.0!
Social bookmarking is a new concept to me. At least the social part, if not the bookmarking and tagging part. I've bookmarked a website or two in my laptop's web browser, and noticed tags or labels on blog entries. However, with a website like delicious.com, people can bookmark and tag websites, see what other websites are being tagged, and who is tagging which websites. It is an intriguing concept because of the user generated tagging. Instead of a controlled vocabulary of subject headings, a person can tag a website in any way they see fit.

Activity One:
I typed "pilates" into delicious.com. I came up with 9000 results. Of the 50 or so that I glanced over, most appeared to be instructions or descriptions of some sort. I found wikipedia articles, about.com articles, podcasts, and youtube videos. Most of the other tags on these results mentioned exercise, fitness,and health which were all expected.

The same search in google yielded 4 million results. These results tended to be associations (e.g. The Pilates Association of Canada), certain systems (Stott Pilates or Winsor Pilates), and pilates studios in various locations.

In broad terms, at least for a topic like pilates, the sites that people are tagging in delicious seem to be more "how to" than the sites that seek to gain in google (i.e. that you'll pay to join the studio Guelph or Kitsilano).

Activity Two:
I signed up for delicious, and saved a few websites. Honestly, I don't see myself using this website for bookmarking since it's generally not an activity I take part in. It's simply a personal preference, because I do appreciate the theory behind social bookmarking.

I can, however, see myself using the site to explore some of the tags. For example, in preparation for my oral presentation, I can now read the pages that "louisethelibrarian" has tagged on information literacy. Then I can see the pages all delicious users have tagged on information literacy. Nifty! I feel like it brings the serendipity back into searching.

There is one thing I am curious about... when I search for a tag, why do the results display as they do? It seems that the results are not sorted alphabetically, by number of tags, or by number of users saving it. Is there some kind of relevance system?

For Your Listening and Viewing Pleasure

I am inspired to share a few tidbits today.

First, the NAXOS Music Library. If you ever have a hankering to hear Brahms Fourth Symphony but do no have ready access to a physical music library, like me, then NAXOS will be a welcome resource. From the Winnipeg Public Library website, under the "Find It Online" tab, click on "Search NAXOS Music". Five hundred thousand "classical" tracks are available, but don't be frightened away! Try searching "Christos Hatzis Constantinople" and listen to a track or two. "Old Photographs" is a good one to start with.

Second, my brother's photo blog. His wife's brother and sister-in-law just had a baby girl and the photos are "awwwww!" inspiring.

Enjoy!

Online Applications

Today I had a chance to try out Google Documents. Simply put, it was fun. I suppose this had more to do with the situation than the application itself. You can see the fun in adding:

• A sentence to our story about Sue--one that does not rhyme
• My classmates' favorite symbol to the collaborative presentation
• A Feist song to our party play list

I am interested in trying Google docs in serious project; perhaps one where, because of time or location, i cannot work side-by-side with a collaborator. It would be advantageous to have all the information in one place rather than in a multitude of email attachments. In addition, no one will have their lock stolen as they did in the class wiki.

The chat feature is a smart tool--in the midst of writing their lab report, "Johnny" and "Bobby" can decide whether they should mention that their Bunsen burner exploded--and they won't have to phone each other or log on to another chat service to have this discussion.

I found Google documents fairly intuitive, or at least similar to Microsoft Office (which I am used to). I had a bit of difficulty getting some of the tools to load (e.g. the picture upload), but I am not sure if this was the application or my computer being slow.

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Later on, I tried another application. I opted for Shelfari, which is another easy-to-use tool. I created a profile in moments; and began adding books I have read, am reading, or would like to read. I found out who else had read the same books as me, and what they thought of them. I even added a shelfari widget to my blog, which you are cordially invited to view. I am not sure if I will continue to use this tool; however, it would be a neat application to use in libraries as an informal book club or readers' advisory.