When the term Wiki is used the first thing I think of is "Wikipedia: The Online Encyclopedia". I have used this site many times before to look up general information about topics. While information is constantly updated on this site there is no real guarantee of it's accuracy. For example, when a WWF wrestler died last year news of the death was posted on Wikipedia before the event actually occurred. Aside from the possibility that it was a psychic that posted it this is just one example of the flaw in a Wiki. That is why I would not use such technology for serious research.
However I am impressed with the way it is used in a library context. Rather than providing direct information about a topic, it provides information about library resources in relation to a topic. I would use this for serious research. I was particularly impressed with the setup of a Wiki by St Joseph County Public Library. It provides a list of subject guides. Each guide presents brief information about the topic as well as different library resources such as books and electronic documents and databases. It is a very readable and easy to access site. I believe that Wikis can be used in the public library system as a gateway to library resources and services.
Saturday 23 February 2008
Friday 1 February 2008
Social Bookmarking and Tagging
The whole idea of social bookmarking had me confused at first. I'm aware of tagging because I've been tagged in various Facebook photos, however I was not familiar with del.icio.us and its capabilities. I tried to play the short video to learn more about it but the public PC's would not play sound and my home computer makes everyone sound like a chipmunk. So I visited the del.icio.us site and read up about social bookmarking. From my understanding it's a site where I can save some of my favourite websites in the one place. I see it as being similar to the 'favourites' icon on my desktop. The difference being that I can access del.icio.us from any computer rather than just my own pc.
I think this is really useful technology. There are sites I visit frequently and it would be good to keep the links to these sites in a place I can use from any computer. It is also extremely handy for research purposes. I am starting my masters course this year and del.icio.us would be a great place to store sites associated with my research so that I can go back and view them whenever and whereever I need to. I can also look at sites that others have tagged that may be relevant to my topic of study.
It is interesting to see how Ann Arbor District Library has used social bookmarking and tagging in their information service. They have tag clouds showing the most popular tags in their catalog. They list the top 10 tags and most recent tags. This is something that could be used in all library services. It would allow patrons to view items associated with a paticular tagged subject.It would also give an indication of community interests by looking at the popularity of the tags. However this would not give us a complete indication for any statistical purpose because not all library patrons will use the catalog or go online frequently. This is very likely to change in the future so social bookmarking and tagging would definately be a good option for the library and information service.
I think this is really useful technology. There are sites I visit frequently and it would be good to keep the links to these sites in a place I can use from any computer. It is also extremely handy for research purposes. I am starting my masters course this year and del.icio.us would be a great place to store sites associated with my research so that I can go back and view them whenever and whereever I need to. I can also look at sites that others have tagged that may be relevant to my topic of study.
It is interesting to see how Ann Arbor District Library has used social bookmarking and tagging in their information service. They have tag clouds showing the most popular tags in their catalog. They list the top 10 tags and most recent tags. This is something that could be used in all library services. It would allow patrons to view items associated with a paticular tagged subject.It would also give an indication of community interests by looking at the popularity of the tags. However this would not give us a complete indication for any statistical purpose because not all library patrons will use the catalog or go online frequently. This is very likely to change in the future so social bookmarking and tagging would definately be a good option for the library and information service.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)