Tagging is a way to categorize items, like your bookmarks, Web pages, pictures, & posts. More flexible than folders, you make up tags when you need them and you can use as many as you like. The result is a way to organize your bookmarks or blog posts or other things you want to label.
Unlike traditional library subject cataloging, which follows a strict set of guidelines (e.g., Library of Congress subject headings), tagging is completely unstructured and free form, allowing users to create connections between data in any way they want.
Another way to look at it would be if traditional LC subject headings were a band, they would probably be some kind of highly regimented and disciplined military marching band. Orderly, clean and all sparkly-new, marching on a pristine, green field one clear, crisp April morning beneath a sky so blue you'd think you'd died and went to Hawaii. Tagging, on the other hand, would be analogous to every hardcore-speed-metal-grindcore-gutterpunk band ever even conceived of, welded together and bound in rusty razor-wire, playing at maximum volume and velocity, on an oceanliner flooded with pure undiluted, high octane jet fuel and set on fire, sinking, and simultaneously exploding, during the world's worst hurricane ever known in the history of recorded time, ever.
Absolute. Biblical. Apocalyptic.
That is the difference between LC cataloging and tagging my friend.
I'll give you a moment to let that one settle in.
OK then, in the past few weeks, we’ve already explored one site--Flickr--that allows users to take advantage of tagging. You may have tagged some of your own photos as part of that Thing. Searching tags in Flickr or another site that allows tagging lets you find other items with those same tags.
Do yourself some tagging:
1. You can tag (Blogger calls them labels) your Blogger posts with keywords or phrases. From the Dashboard, go to Manage Posts and choose the post you want to add tags to. Enter the words in the Labels for this post box in the lower right. Type in your tags (commas between each word or phase). Click Publish Post to re-publish the post with its labels (tags) to your blog.
Del.icio.us
In addition to tagging, this Thing looks at the popular social bookmarking site Del.icio.us (typed in as http://del.icio.us/). Del.icio.us is a social bookmarking manager that allows you to bookmark a Web page and add tags to categorize your bookmarks. Tags can be used in Del.icio.us to organize your bookmarks--and let others know what you have bookmarked. Learn about tagging on Del.icio.us.
Del.icio.us lets you access your bookmarks from any computer--just log into your account and there they are. This is a great timesaver if you need to find a site, but can't remember its name. If you tag your Del.icio.us bookmarks, you can search on the tags. For students, Del.icio.us helps them use bookmarks in their research. The bookmarks are available at any computer they use in the library, the lab, or at home.
Many users find that the real power of Del.icio.us is its social networking piece. You can see how other users have tagged similar links. Following their links lets you discover other Web sites that may be of interest to you. You can think of it as peering into another users’ file folders, but with this powerful bookmarking tool each user's folders helps to build an expansive knowledge network.
Seriously people, after that "knowledge network" line in the above paragraph, I'm finding it difficult to come up with any more superlatives to describe social bookmarking, Del.icio.us or tagging so let's just get to your assignment.
For the second part of this Thing, take a look at Del.icio.us and learn more about this popular bookmarking tool. Continue with these activities:
2. Watch this great overview of Social Bookmarking provided by our good friends at CommonCraft
3. Create a Del.icio.us account for yourself and discover how this useful bookmarking tool can replace your traditional browser bookmark list.
4. Explore the site options and try clicking on a bookmark that has also been bookmarked by a lot of other users. Can you see the comments they added about this bookmark or the tags they used to categorize this reference?
Resources
Seven Things You Should Know About Social Bookmarking (pdf)
Blog Prompts
1. Create a blog post about your experience and thoughts about this tool.
2. Can you see the potential of this tool for research assistance? Or just as an easy way to create bookmarks that can be accessed from anywhere?
3. Do you see any other useful applications of tagging and del.icio.us in your academic and/or professional life?
Challenge (optional)
1. Explore Furl, another social bookmarking site that lets you organize your bookmarks. Compare its features with Del.icio.us.
2. Pagekeeper is a similar service aimed at teachers--it is an ad-free site that lets you create a list of Web sites for student access. Try the bookmarking features of Pagekeeper and compare them to del.icio.us and/or Furl. Pagekeeper is maintained by Teaching Matters, a non-profit that promotes technology integration in education.
