SOCIAL BOOKMARKING : Tagging, Folksonomies & Del.icio.us

Checked out Library's bookmarks at http://del.icio.us/suthlib.

Clicked on tag -"people" under Header - "Society".

Related tags - countries, Demographics, economics, Geography, statistics.

Site " CIA - The World Fact Book" bookmarked by 1692 people to date.

This site provides a profile of every country in the world; including a statistical overview of the country's demographic makeup.

View of ALL pages revealed many sites such as : "Assembled Western Philosophers" eg.
Plato and Aristotle. Philosophers appear chronologically in "Philosophy Timeline"along with the additional thinkers from the "Dictionary of Terms and Names" including Umberto Eco and Meister Eckhart.

View of POPULAR pages revealed again many sites. One of which touched me -

"Alison on the Behance Network"

Alison by Jack Radcliffe - saved by 225 people to date.

A visual life-story of Alison, capturing moments in her metamorphosis from infant to woman - her relationships with her friends, her rebellion, and underlying it all - her relationship with her father.

Tag Clouds -a display of tags where size reflects popularity, sorted alphabetically by size.

Explored "most interesting" tags on Flickr - explored "beach clusters" where beach photos are refined & found my blog photo "Chesil Beach" by Peter Van Allen.

Explored "most popular " tags on del.icio.us -observed how favourite sites & sharing of these sites with other users occurs.

Ann Arbor District Library -Viewed examples of collection tagging - top 10 tags, most recent tags and random tags - contained high percentage of recreational content.

Summary -Social bookmarking sites are a great way to categorise content, whereby new bookmarks are tagged and accessible from home, office or anywhere.

Libraries could make use of" del.icio.us" by tagging books according to genre / most interesting/ most popular, for instance and with community input, further the links on their websites.

THOUGHTS ON FLICKR

Photo - Chesil Beach, Portland, UK. The Jurassic Coast World Heritage site.
Photographer - Peter Van Allen. May 6, 2007.
Tags - keywords which provide assistance in finding photos with common thread. Selecting a tag brings up the whole collection of photos pertaining to that tag.
- for this picture _ seascape, night, landscape, blue, boat, sea, sunset, ocean, water....
Comments attracted to photo - many. More comments brought up by moving mouse over image.
My interest in this picture - love the vivid blue, the sun reflections on the pebbles, & the sunset itself.

FLICKR - Exploration of - National Lib. of Australia - Image collections ( contributed throughFlickr) are accessible through"Picture Australia"- contain artworks & photographs that document Australian history & society from 18th century to present.

- State Lib. of NSW - Historical & documentary pictorials collection, depicting life & scenes in NSW from colonisation to date.

- Wollongong City Library - "Illawarra images" photographic database, featuring images of people, places, events, industry & landscape of Illawarra District from 1832 to present.

- Sutherland Shire Library - Historical images & pictures of Sutherland Shire including picture trails. - Photos taken from storytime activities, workshops, postings of Book and Library Week themes and visiting authors.

Summary - Flickr is a revolutionary on-line photo management & sharing application and a great promotional tool for Libraries to market their collections, activities, & future events to the community.