I use Delicious. I proposed some time ago (see appended below) that AJL members adopt this or a similar service in order to share and elevate the good quality tags we exchange via HaSafran. A number of other members use Delicious already. This isn't the only tool or necessarily the best, but if we could agree to move forward with something, it might be useful.
I wanted to reintroduce the idea of sharing Web links in a durable way via a social bookmarking tool. The idea is, essentially, that we save and/or tag items of common interest in central location. There are several important advantages to this strategy. For instance, as a personal tool, a social bookmarking site makes your bookmarks available to you wherever you are. Ever sat at a colleagues desk or in an Internet cafe and tried to remember how to reach a site bookmarked on your computer? This solves that problem. But the advantages go far beyond that. Once you save a link to the central site, it makes it easier for other users to find that site again. It's a bit like saying, "Here's something I found valuable and I hope you find it useful, too." And, as more people save a link, its status rises. It is one way for good links to rise to the top. I've always felt that if librarians took more ownership of these sorts of efforts, marking and reviewing the good stuff, the quality of the Internet would improve. There are several social bookmarking sites, all with their advantages and adherents. I've been using delicious.com the longest and I still recommend it. I've been tagging links that come down through the HaSafran list that interest me with the tag "ajlib". (It seems that "AJL" is used commonly for some other topic.) You can see everything everyone has every tagged this way via the link: http://delicious.com/tag/ajlib There are several ways to share links with other users. The simplest is to add the above URL to your Web pages: e.g., "Links recommended by Association of Jewish Libraries members" There are even fancier tools that will allow you to embed live lists of these tags directly within pages. For an example of this, see my blog site, bottom right column: http://jsucsclibrary.blogspot.com/ If you want to join in and contribute, you have to register (for free) with delicious.com. There are several ways to add and tag links. I use the Firefox plug-in that adds buttons to my browser's menubar, allowing me to easily bookmark the page I'm viewing. If no one else has saved that item, it's a bit of a blank slate. You can edit the title if you need to, add notes, and enter any tags you want. If you are there first, you should definitely add "ajlib" to the tags so that other members can find it again. If it has been saved before, previously-used tags are suggested. You can still add other tags as you need them and they will be readily available to you for retrieving your bookmarks when you need them. Feel free to accept the tags previous users have suggested or not. If we all use the ajlib tag when we add AJL-related items, the above URL will allow us to collect and share our links in one place. This seems like a good thing. I don't think we need to vote on this. All that is needed is for those willing to participate start to save and add tags for this to work. -- Lee Jaffe Assessment & Planning Librarian 3366 McHenry Library University of California 1156 High Street Santa Cruz, California 95064 831.459.3297 [email protected] http://library.ucsc.edu/ --- 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
