Thing 13

As usual, my head is reeling after being introduced to lots of new ideas. I am experiencing a paradigm shift, as they say! One of the quotes that really struck me about social bookmarking is "Find the Best of Web through People, not Machines!" That hit home because even Google in its bid for world domination sometimes misses the mark when it comes to searching. After viewing the Del.icio.us tutorial, I was convinced this is the way to go. But I think Furl and Ma.gnolia each have their good points. Furl evidently is better for serious research and Ma.gnolia has a clean web design and is user-friendly. However, all of these sites appear to be user-friendly. Their main purpose is to change Chaos into Order. I relate to that because my favorites list is a mile long! It will be nice to finally put my favorites into order and be able to view them from any computer. I know there are favorites websites options now but the advantage any social bookmarking site is folksonomy. I love that term because taxonomy is the hook on which all biology hangs. Folksonomy is a peer-driven taxonomy. That speaks to the biology teacher I was in my former life. Folksonomy, blogs, and wikis may be the hooks on which education will hang in the future! I think this could certainly be used in the library. It seems our pathfinders that were once so awesome seem kind of dated now. It would be neat to create a reading list or website list of resources for particular research using a social bookmarking site. I don't know that even our students know much about this. It would be wonderful for librarians to be a step ahead of our students for once! (and I may be kidding myself about that!)