LIS 9763

The world wide web is a large dumping of information. If you want it, it's out there! Anything, all without any standard classification schemes. Terabytes of information sitting on my PC, your laptop, a server belonging to some guy on the other side of the world, everywhere, and anywhere in between. To help navigate this information beast, people bookmark and tag information. This is great, for the individual user. What about the rest of us? Cue social bookmarking and tagging. This allows me share my bookmarks with you, that guy on the other side of the globe, and everyone and anyone in between. Sharing bookmarks eliminates redundant searching which is the point that Tony Hammond (et al) make in Social Bookmarking Tools. 'Why spill any ink (digital or not) in rewriting what someone else has already written about instead of just pointing at the original story and adding the merest of titles, descriptions and tags for future reference?'.
So, maybe it seems a bit chaotic that I can apply tags, and categorize information my way. Sure, it would be, if we were talking about the physical world. If I rearranged the books at a library to a scheme that made the most sense to me, and you did the same for yourself, we would have chaos. However, in the digital world, we are not limited to the phrase 'a space for everything, and everything in its place'. Instead, I can place information in as many categories as I like and then share it using a site like Del.icio.us or Nutr.itio.us.
Users are liberated in this information order. Instead of adhering to a predetermined organization scheme, users are given the freedom to decide what belongs where. It's up to them. The user can also decided to search for other users and view their bookmarks. This is extremely beneficial to anyone who might benefit from a certain users digital personal lit search (or, at least something that might resemble a lit search).
In addition, tags, and bookmarks are also a reflection of the user who is creating them. The great thing about the PennTag case study, is that it contains a tag cloud. This tag cloud in a visual representation of what this community considers important. How can you tell? The tags that are used most often are larger, and bold. A tag cloud is transitory, as different topics become more important they will grow, and become bold. Nothing is static, which keeps users and contributors interested.
Social bookmarking and tagging allow user to navigate the information monster by sharing. We are all searching for information together, why not share what you've found. It might be what someone else is looking for.