Tagging, Technorati, and Library 2.0 (Parts 13-15)

Tagging

I tag sporadically. Sometimes on my other blogs, I'm pretty well religious about it. I use tags so that folks searching for certain topics that my blogs cover can easily find my blogs and/or blog entries quickly.

I'm also pretty sporadic about my Delicious tagging, although I'm getting better about using it for bookmarks since my computer has died twice this year on me already. :( More importantly, I'm using it to improve search results for my other blogs and their entries.

Below is an image of some of my bookmarks in Delicious. It's always a treat to see that some of my blog entries are also bookmarked by other bloggers or simply visitors.



At this point, I have something like 682 bookmarks, all tagged according to their topics. Well, that's not entirely true. Not all of them are appropriately tagged, but most of them are.

Technorati

I tried claiming my Altered Plates blog on Technorati, and they flagged it. I'm not sure why since it doesn't fall into any of the categories that would lead to a flagging. Consequently, I sent an email asking the Technorati folks why they would flag my blog. I'll let you know when they respond.

Otherwise, I tried Technorati early on, but found that it just served as another search engine specific to blogs. It's a pretty old-fashioned notion, but the fewer places I have to go look for things, the better off I'll be. My available time is limited, so I don't want to go all over the 'net to find information that I can get just as easily through Google. In fact, because Technorati only searches blogs that are "claimed" within it, it won't find everything that Google will.

Library 2.0


I really enjoyed Michael Stephens' article on Library 2.0. Even back in 2006, when the article was written, he was thinking about things in ways we think about them today. My favorite part was when he wrote about how libraries need not make policies that hinder customers when they need information. I'd like to see Stephens' philosophies applied on a much larger scale, not just in libraries.

Another of the Web 2.0/Library 2.0 articles I enjoyed was by Rick Anderson. I'm with him when he says that librarians should function less as gatekeepers and more as trainers -- as in training publics in using the resources available in the library. His point about adapting to the current times and delivering content via the web rather than as only a brick and mortar location is key.