Using Delicious: a Social Bookmarking Tool (an INF506 OLJ entry)

What is Social Bookmarking?

As I mentioned in my previous post, students enrolled in INF506, Social Networking for Information Professionals, are required to create accounts on Delicious, a social bookmarking website.  So, what is social bookmarking? It's actually quite convenient.  Delicious allows users to take information from the web (articles, pictures, videos, etc.) and save them all in one place.  Users can also upload favorite articles and posts  from other social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter to their Delicious account for easy access and organizing.  From a librarian's point of view, I find it similar to classification and cataloging.  For example, as I read the articles and watch the videos for class, I simply add the ones I find relevant to me to my Delicious account.  When I add something, I am able to "tag" the item, or classify it using a  folksonomy system, with a descriptive word such as "social networking" or "Facebook", allowing me to easily search and find the information I've saved so I can  refer back to it later.  Here is an example of what tags look like:

When I click on the tags, other documents will be retrieved so that I can find even more relevant information on the subject I'm searching for.  This also allows Delicious users to view what others have posted, enabling people to find users who have similar interests.  Delicious allows users to follow each other, so that when someone I follow posts something new I am able to view it in my feed and decide if I want to bookmark it myself.  So what's the point? All of this is a great way to group information together that I've found on the web and that I've been introduced to by other members.  I am then able to group items together by type through tagging for my own reference.

How is Social Bookmarking Helpful?

Using Delicious is helpful in many ways.  Right now, I am using it for educational and professional purposes.  I am bookmarking websites that will be helpful to me for class assignments and projects.  This is basically allowing me to build my reference list for these larger projects and allows easy, quick access to the information I need. This is a great way for all students to build lists of works that they can use for assignments, and librarians can refer students to this site and offer tutorials.

 I am also bookmarking articles relevant to my profession in library Youth Services, to be able to access ideas and other helpful tips on programming and services that I'd like to implement in the future.  Professionals in all fields will find organizing relevant information helpful using Delicious because it is a great way to collaborate on projects and share a variety of resources, ideas and media from a number of online places.

What are the Downsides?

For the most part, my experience using Delicious has been a positive one.  I love when social networking sites can help make my life easier.  Delicious allows me to organize and group similar information.  This is incredibly helpful for my projects in school and at work.  However, one thing to keep in mind is that technology doesn't always run smoothly.  Many classmates and I repeatedly got an error message every time we tried to follow someone on Delicious, making it difficult to find other users in order to share interesting and helpful information. After contacting Delicious, this problem has been resolved. This is a great example of users experimenting with social networking sites and trying to improve user experience.  Hopefully Delicious will use this feedback to address the issue and improve service.