I've become more interested in the past year or so in social networking tools online and have been trying to learn how to apply them to my work. In line with this (and perhaps indirectly in response to some of the discussion about what kind of group this mailing list represents), I wanted to explore ways we could make better use of the list members' resources and also strengthen the group's connections via such tools. I've been using del.icio.us for a couple of years now to bookmark any links of interest. Rather than save an email message about an interesting site, I prefer to open the link and bookmark it. Instead of bookmarking items locally, Istarted using del.icio.us, a "social bookmarking" service, as a means of noting sites so that I could get to my bookmarks no matter where I was. It has the added advantages of 1) allowing me to share my links (by topic, if I choose) with others and 2) putting important sites onto a pool where others can discover them. Bookmarking a couple of the items that came through HaSafran today, I whimsically added the tag "ajl" so that I could find them again as items contributed through this mailing list. You can see the handful of links I've added this way at http://del.icio.us/ldjaffe/ajl
Then I thought, "What if we all bookmarked such items with some representative tag, where anyone could find them?" "Would it contribute to others finding these sources?" del.icio.us isn't the only social bookmarking site or necessarily the best, just the one I'm using. Therefore I'm not endorsing the particular tool, just raising the possibility of us collaborating through some social bookmarking service. Does anyone else use del.icio.us -- I do some other AJL links there -- or a comparable service? Is there enough interest in doing something like this? Similarly, I've been exploring Facebook, particularly its "groups" feature as a way of connecting people. It would be a simple matter to create an AJL group on Facebook as a means of connecting folks in yet another way. Is there any interest in adding this tool to our kit? While I'm sure an email list will suffice for the time being, I wonder whether some of the needs of this group couldn't be met better through some of these newer Web 2.0 tools. Any thoughts? -- Lee Messages and opinions expressed on Hasafran are those of the individual author and are not necessarily endorsed by the Association of Jewish Libraries (AJL) =========================================================== Submissions for Ha-Safran, send to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] SUBscribing, SIGNOFF commands send to: Listproc @ lists.acs.ohio-state.edu Questions, problems, complaints, compliments;-) send to: galron.1 @ osu.edu Ha-Safran Archives: Current: http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.acs.ohio-state.edu/maillist.html History: http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.acs.ohio-state.edu/history.html AJL HomePage http://www.JewishLibraries.org
