The next lesson in our web 2.0 program at my library asked us to look at more specific uses of tagging. In particular, something class "folksonomy" which is really just a fancy name for tagging if you ask me.
One of the first things we were asked to do was look at a library using a new software called Encore. Encore is suppose to help make online library catalogs better and more user friendly. One of the elements of Encore is that when you search for a topic, to the right of your results you see a "tag cloud" on your topic. You can refine your search by looking at and clicking on a term in the cloud.
One of the first things I noticed is that Encore, at least in this particular library's catalog, definitely slows things down. It takes your results a few extra seconds to load and it takes that tag cloud even longer to load. That actually raises some concerns for me in terms of our off-campus and online learners using our resources from dial-up and slower connections. But, to move on since that's not the point of this assignment .....
I wonder about tag clouds and how useful they will be to a normal user. I particularly wonder if they'll even realize what they are.
Next we looked at del.icio.us. I absolutely do think tools like del.icio.us and netvouz (which I use) can be very helpful to people on a personal level in terms of keeping up with your web bookmarks. But I confess that I moved away from del.icio.us (with all of it's tagging ) to netvouz which allows me to create folders and put my bookmarks in folders. Del.icio.us just seemed to overwhelming for me and I never seemed to tag some things the same way. Maybe it's the librarian in me, but being able to put bookmarks in folders has been much more productive for me personally.
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