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Social Bookmarking & Del.icio.us:

A Personal and Professional Productivity Tool

Patricia F. Anderson

Health Sciences Libraries University of Michigan

February 22, 2007

© 2007 Regents of the

University of Michigan.

All rights reserved.

Del.icio.us

Useful for …

• Folk who use multiple computers in various locations

• Discovery of items similar to your selections

• Collecting search strategies & information for bibliographies

• Course-integrated instruction

• Sharing resources with peers, managers, students & others

• Web site development

Content in Del.icio.us

• Database built by general public, contains what others liked

• Focused: better for popular topics and items

• Currently tends to focus on items of interest to technophiles and young adults, but growing and diversifying

• What you add changes the profile

Like Del.icio.us … but for Scientists

• Connotea

• CiteULike

Connotea

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Connotea CiteULike

Searching in Del.icio.us

• Three options

Searching in Del.icio.us

• Example:

Searching in Del.icio.us

• Let’s try it.

•http://del.icio.us/

Browsing Tags in Del.icio.us

• Tags are freeform and self-selected

• Check a variety of spellings, phrasings, capitalization, and punctuation for the same concept

• Avian flu = avian.flu = avian_flu = avian-flu = avianflu = Avian.flu = Avian.Flu = “avian flu” = …

• Avian influenza

• Bird flu = birdflu

• Bird influenza

• Pandemic influenza

• Pandemic flu

• H5N1 / h5n1

• MORE: tamiflu, pandemic, flu, epidemic, influenza

• Watch for popular terms

http://del.icio.us/

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Browsing Tags in Del.icio.us Browsing Tags in Del.icio.us

Browsing Tags in Del.icio.us Browsing Tags in Del.icio.us

• DEMO

•http://del.icio.us/tag/

Getting Started

• Create your account

• Upload your bookmarks

• Export bookmarks (“hotsync”)

• Save links

• Tag

• Annotate

• Settings

Create Your Account

http://del.icio.us/tag/

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Create Your Account

• Each account must be associated with a unique e-mail address (I think).

• If creating an account to be shared across an office, consider creating an e-mail list to serve as the contact e-mail address.

Create Your Account

• Consider the purpose of the account when naming it; segregate home / personal and office collections.

• If you will be collecting information that is private consider choosing a username that will not be associated with you personally.

Create Your Account

• Let’s do it!

• Choose a fictional “name”?

• If you have a non-UM e-mail address, consider using that as the contact.

• Use a different password than your Kerberos password.

• You will need to open your e-mail in another window to activate the account.

Upload Bookmarks

• Easy: Select file, accept default options

• Public or Private - your choice

Export Bookmarks

• Like hotsyncing your browser

How to Save a Link

• With the post button

• With the browser buttons

• Required elements: title / URL

• Optional standard elements: tags / annotations

• Extra optional element: Privacy checkbox

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How to Save a Link

• With the post button (eg. PDFs)

How to Save a Link

• With the post button (eg. PDFs)

How to Save a Link

• With the browser buttons

• TIP: Use the tab to fill in a tag with the highlighted tag, or click on the choice to save typing.

How to Save a Link

• Extra optional element: Privacy checkbox

How to Tag

• Tagging rules

• Separate tags with a space

• Join words with punctuation (lower-case preferred) (some simply delete spaces between words)

• Use capitalization appropriately to improved readability or to distinguish between tags and bundles

How to Annotate

• Annotations: Personal vs. Communal

• Citations

• Quotations

• Date Viewed

• Size limits on what can be included

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Tag & Annotate Examples Tag & Annotate Examples

Tag & Annotate Examples Editing Saved Links

Personalized Settings

• Privacy options

• Tag Bundles

• Networking

Personalized Settings: Privacy

• Private links (checkbox)

• Private network (block someone who sends you inappropriate links)

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Personalized Settings: Tag Bundles

• SAVE!

Who Saved What?

Personalized Settings: Networks

Using Networks for Discovery

Things To Do With Del.icio.us

• Working with students

• Del.icio.us in class environments (Google jockeys)

• Working with peers and administrators

• Have an assistant gather information for you

Del.icio.us vs. Ctools for URL Collections

• Del.icio.us• Available to public (+/-)

• Annotations and tags provide richer information than the Ctools Dropbox

• Easier to share/add/delete links than Ctools

• Students develop skills and collections for life after Michigan

• Feeds the public good

• Ctools• Can secure access to a select group (+/-)

• Integrates with other course materials

• UM Institutional and community standard

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Collect Links for Building Websites

Collect Information to Answer a Question

• Remember privacy issues: Does your collection reveal identity?

Collect Information and Strategies for Your Manager

Have an Assistant Collect Links for You

Create Information and Teaching Guides

• Library guides …

Linking to Complex Concepts

• Use the plus sign (+) to combine concepts

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Example Library Guide

• Notice the annotations?

Saving Search Strategies

• Saving search strategies for a class (Google Jockey concept) …

Tagging Tips

• Too few terms can make retrieval difficult

• Too many terms can also make retrieval difficult

Tagging Tips

• Include both broad and narrow terms

• Design terms with repeated concepts to go from broad to narrow, general to specific.

Tagging Tips

• Use punctuation for spaces (lower case)

• Think of unique concepts as two term combinations, rather than a new term.

• Standardization helps, but requires maintenance.

Tagging Tips

• Tagging shortcuts: examples

• Items for a particular audience:

• 4doctors, 4kids, 4patients, etc

• Items from frequently read journals or authors:

• in:jada, in:nyt, in:chronicle, in:agd

• Items for people in your delicious network:

• for:dentlib, for:tmjchat

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Saving Items Tagged for You Saving Items Tagged for You

Tag Clouds Tag Bundles

Questions?

• Contact: Patricia Anderson at pfa@umich.edu