Libraries: Tagging and bookmarking and folksonomies, oh my!

I think that there is a real potential for libraries to take advantage of these tools. It provides the perfect way to provide access to information that is targeted. It seems like an ideal way to help patrons navigate the internet and make them aware of links that they might find relevant.

The four public libraries seem to be using delicious well to highlight items of interest to their patrons, however some do not seem to be tagging very effectively as there are many many tags that are difficult to navigate. I think that they would benefit from creating some larger, more general tag names to include with their more specific tags so that they could create some larger, more easy to spot, category labels within the cloud. As they currently stand, the tag clouds are huge, and have very little variation - it is a large list of every single bit of content, rather than a guide to general content. I realize that I am trying to put order to something that is not necessarily supposed to be ordered...but I do think it would be helpful. I don't know what can be done, but the size of the cloud on Lansing Public Library's is crazy!!!! The Thomas Ford PL seems to have the same problem. Who would be willing to navigate that? Am I being anal and missing the whole point?!? Hmmmm.....

The one for Seldovia PL is much better as every entry seems to be tagged with one of their "main categories" as well as the more specific tags. La Grange seems to be quite small so the tagging is difficult to judge just yet.

One problem is definitely ensuring that patrons understand what it is and how to use it. The Maui Community College Library does this very well by providing del.icio.us feeds on their About Us page. They highlight that it is Our Interests and provide a direct link to the articles. The recent tags are totally accessible to someone who knows nothing about del.icio.us, and those interested in searching for more can go to their del.icio.us site to search further. They seem to have set up main categories of internet, web, libraries, politics, web 2.0 that serve as main categories for them.

Penn Tags is great! I like that they provide the "about" link to describe the site. It looks very professional and I think that having the tag cloud at the center top makes it more visible and easy to use. This is a good resource and, because it is directed to a specific university community, it is likely that significant tags categories will quickly be established. I also think that university students are a patron community that may be more likely to take advantage of something like this.