Tagging & folksonomies

I have used Delicious before, so looked out my username and password details to revisit some of the URL's and tags that I had saved there (I am getting used to writing all these usernames and passwords down now, wish there was some sort of universal login for web 2.0 applications).

My primary aim for using Delicious the first time around was to explore how it may be used for information literacy (see previous post), however I did think it would be useful to put together for example a lists of web resources for students after an information literacy session. I have now explored the use of creating bundles of URL's using tags to indicate which areas you want to include in the bundles, this may be useful for my housing and planning students who use a lot of official publications freely available on the web - especially as I am plaaning on weeding the print collection we currently have in the library.

Here are a couple of my bundles:
http://www.delicious.com/emmamires/bundle:E-learning
http://www.delicious.com/emmamires/bundle:Induction

Create your own search engine

Photo credit: by Jack Delano used under creative commons, coutesy of Library of Congress LC-USW36-645

The thing for this post is to create your own search engine using Rollyo which is a way of setting up customizable topical searches. I created a searchroll for my ABE blog but on quite a small scale (I only added in three websites), considering that this blog is supposed to support three departments the 25 limit on total URL's may prove too restrictive.

With an IL head on I was pondering whether any use could be made of these tools for this end - I remember that I used to deliver a session split over two days where I would ask students to go away and evaluate some websites using the accuracy, objectivity, currency, authority etc. and then report back on their evaluations. Perhaps I could have created a searchroll of sites and then asked students to search for a topic and identify credible sites out of the results...or perhaps I am just looking for novel ways to reinvent the wheel...

Being your own librarian

I set up a LibraryThing account for my Resources for Architecture and the Built Environment blog, and use it for adding new titles I have ordered for the library and like the visual element it adds to the blog.

I have to admit that I haven't explored the full functionality in terms of tagging, reviewing, recommendations etc. but do intend to look at the tagging option inparticular to tag books with courses, module codes, subjects etc.


Here is my LibraryThing account.