del.icio.us

del.icio.us can be a very useful tool, especially as a way to have mobile bookmarks rather than having them stored on one computer.

If the account is for more than personal use, I think the issue of tagging needs to be thought out in advance. If more than one person is contributing to del.icio.us, you may need to agree on common terms ahead of time in order to be consistent.

In looking at Menasha's account it was nice to see that the tags could be organized into bundles, although even then it was still a long list to scroll through. Is there an easier way to view the tags, rather than in one long list down the side of the screen?

Tagging in the catalog could be very helpful for patrons. One subject heading that I've always found frustrating is "cookery". This is not a common term and the word "cooking" seems like it would be much more useful. I also noticed that "recipes" is not commonly used as a subject heading, and it seems to be used more for books that fall under entertaining or other non-cookery areas where patrons might not think to look for recipes. (For example, Amy Sedaris' I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence.) I also found the subject heading "quick and easy cookery" - I can't imagine any patron being lucky enough to guess this exact subject heading, so tagging might be very useful for items like these where the Library of Congress Subject Headings are no longer in vogue.

If patrons were allowed to tag items, there might need to be a moderator in order to sort out any obscene words or phrases. (I would prefer this to a filter; it would be interesting to know what AADL does.) There also might need to be an option to turn off the tags, so that patrons could search a sleek version of the catalog, if that's what they want. Otherwise, some might find the extra information distracting and unnecessary.

Having an uncontrolled vocabulary would not bother me, because you would know from the start whether you wanted it to be open to patrons or just to staff.

In browsing through del.icio.us, one criticism is that the tags need to be one word and cannot be a phrase. Some tags are written with an underscore replacing the space, while others skip the space and push the words together. Menasha's list includes both of these, so this goes back to my comment about being consistent.