Folksonomy

I recently opened a delicious account and I really like being able to bookmark sites through creating my own tags. I have found that my ability to create good tags has evolved since I first set up the account. At first my tags were a little too general and so in some cases I spent more time than I wanted to sifting through my tagged sites to find the website I was looking for. I am still learning, but now I am able to recall the bookmarked site I am looking for more quickly. For this assignment, I did a search for sites that contain ideas for teaching art. Before when I bookmarked sites that I liked I just used the tag “art”. Then I would have to sift through all my art sites looking for that one project. Now I use the tag “art” and then another descriptor such as “polar bear”, “collage”, or “Valentine’s Day” so that I can find the page I am looking for more readily. I really love it. I keep signed into it all the time so that if I can bookmark easily. For this assignment I have created a stack in Delicious called Art Ideas for Elementary School which anyone can view on the Delicious site.

From experimenting with using tags it is handy that the user can create a vocabulary that works for them, but without a consistent controlled vocabulary in the library it might be harder for others who do not share the same vocabulary to find the information that others have tagged. It is nice that everyone can create their own unique way of categorizing information but in a library setting this may create chaos rather than order. Perhaps if the computer program can become “smart” and can detect tags of a similar category, then it may be more user friendly for library patrons.