LIS 9763

I have been using Delicious for a while, probably about two years, but I have a confession…I don’t always use it to find my old tags.  I do very occasionally use it to find websites that other people have tagged, but not my own, which is what I thought I would have used the tags for. 

I think I mostly use Delicious as a psychological way to “let go” of my constant tabs in Firefox.  My browser typically has 10-15 tabs open at any one time and they will stay there for a very long time (Firefox will save them and open then the next day).  I usually have that many open because I don’t have enough time to read and act on each specific website or I have a number of different project going on at one time that those tabs are needed for.  Delicious gives me the feeling that I can get rid of some of the tabs, because they are saved to Delicious. 

Why don’t I just use bookmarks?  With bookmarks/favourites I can only save my websites to one folder and if I forget what folder I put that website in, I don’t really have a way to find that site again.  In Delicious, because I can give it as many tags as I want and because my tags are sorted by date, I can find those websites easier.  The key for me is to not skimp on the tags...more is better because it gives me more ways to find the information.  Besides…as much as I like controlled vocabulary (except for “cookery”) who uses that for their bookmarks?

**Rambling Off**

For libraries I see tags not necessarily as a way to improve the library portal, although it is, but as another avenue for libraries to reach their users…through the delicious website or by using the cloud or tags produced by Delicious in different websites (e.g. faculty websites or distance portals). 

I’m not convinced that library users use library websites as a portal to all the great information that librarians find for them.  In fact Steven J. Bell agrees in his article, “The Library Web Site of the Future” where he discusses the report produced by the Ithaka Group in August 2008, “Studies of Key Stakeholder in the Digital Transformation of Higher Education.”  They found that faculty tended not to use the library website as a gateway to access electronic content.

I also find myself not using the library website the way it is intended.  Confession: if I have the citation, but have no idea which database the item is in, I will first attempt to use the library databases.  Usually this fails because I usually try the wrong ones first which leaves me frustrated.  I generally will end up doing a Google search to either to find the article (university depository is great) or to find out which database to look (I should probably play with London Public Library’s Research Pro more as it attempts to search all the databases at one time).

Anyway, the point being that the library website should stop trying to be the “gateway” and start trying to put themselves where their users are and Delicious is one place.  You have to organize your bookmarks anyhow and this is a free service to try.