Social bookmarking & tagging: activities 1-3

Activity #1 – navigating Imperial Library’s del.icio.us page
Spend 5-10 minutes looking around the Imperial Library del.icio.us page. To get there, follow these steps:

1. Go to the del.icio.us homepage and click on the ‘Sign In’ link on the top right of the page.

2. Log in using the following details: username: imperiallibrary password: icl

3. After you’ve logged in, take a look at some of the tags on the right-hand side of the page. When you click on a tag, the websites that have been classified or ‘tagged’ using it will be displayed to the left of the page.

4. Near the top of the page you’ll also see a ‘Tag’ link (it’s located underneath the imperiallibrary’s Tags heading). Click on this link to open up a ‘tag cloud’.

A tag cloud or word cloud is a visual depiction of user-generated tags. The larger and bolder the tag the more websites have been bookmarked using it.

5. Click on some of the tags in the tag cloud to see what websites (and other resources) have been classified using it. Do you find these resources useful? Can you think of any other useful websites that could be added? If so, once you’ve completed Activity 2 you’ll be able to upload links and tags to websites you want to store on the Imperial Library del.icio.us page!

Activity #2 – setting up your own del.icio.us account and bookmarking/tagging some sites.

This activity has several steps:

Step 1.
Set up an account with del.icio.us. But remember to do the following during the registration process!

• pay attention to the password requirements, and check your email inbox to complete the registration.
• download the delicious toolbar widget into your Internet browser when prompted. This is very important!

Tip: Watch the YouTube clip in this week’s readings page to get a quick overview of how to set up a del.icio.us account. Please note: del.icio.us very recently changed its interface & this clip refers to the previous version of del.icio.us – but it’ll give you a good general idea of how to set up an account and to start bookmarking.

Step 2.
Once you’ve set up your account, bookmark and tag the Imperial Library homepage by using either one of these options:

a) Go to the Library homepage and then in your browser click on the deli.cio.us ‘Tag’ widget you installed when registering. (This is the widget you downloaded in Step 1.)

OR

b) Go to your account on del.icio.us, click on the ‘Save a new bookmark’ link to the top right of the screen and paste in the URL. Click on ‘Next’.

Step 3.
Add a description to your bookmark. Often cutting and pasting a paragraph from the page saved is useful.

Step 4.
Add some tags and click on then ‘Save’ button.

Step 5.
Bookmark at least 10 other websites of your choice to your delicious account. Add descriptions and tags to each one of them. Remember: when adding tags, chocolate_chip_cookies and ChocolateChipCookies are both one tag, while chocolate chip cookies is three tags! So if your tag is a phrase and therefore has more than one word you need to make sure there are no spaces between the words.

Activity #3 (optional) – setting up your own Flickr account
This activity has several steps. It requires you to set up an account in Flickr, upload a photo and add tags to it. Before you start, you may want to take a look at some of the resources outlined below.

Step 1.
Go to Flickr. Familiarise yourself with the site by searching for some photographs. Have a go at searching on ‘Imperial College London’ & see what you find.

Step 2.
For the purposes of this activity, you need to have access to a photo. If you don’t have access to a photo, this is what you need to do:

• Go to FlickrCC (Flickr photos available for use under a Creative Commons licence).
• Find a photo you like by searching for it. (You just click on a small version of the photo on the left-hand side of the screen and a larger version of it will display to the right of the screen.)
• When you see a photo you like on Flickr, right-click on it.
• Select ‘Save Picture As…’ from the menu which pops up
• Save the photo to your Desktop so that you can easily find it.

Step 3.
Now that you’ve surfed Flickr and also saved a photo, it’s time you set up a Flickr account.
a) Go to the Flickr homepage. Select ‘Create Your Account’ (NB: if you are not already a member of Yahoo!, then select ‘Sign up’ at the bottom of the ‘Sign in to Yahoo!’ box to join Yahoo! Enter the required data and select ‘Create my Account’)
b) When you have successfully signed up, you will see a screen that asks ‘Ready to experience Flickr?’. Select ‘Continue’.

Step 4.
Now you need to upload your photo.
a) Select ‘Upload your first photo’
b) Select ‘Choose photos’. When you select this button, you will immediately be given the option to browse the files on your PC. Browse to the photo you saved previously to the Desktop.
c) Double-click on the image you want, then select ‘Upload photos’.

Step 5.
Finally, you need to describe your photo so that you (and everyone else!) can find it.
a) Select ‘Describe your photos’
b) Add a title, description and some tags.
c) Select ‘Save this batch’

Resources
1. Take a look at this clip created by the CommonCraft team and made available via YouTube. It explains photo sharing really well. (Please note: You’ll need headphones to vie this YouTube clip)

2. How to Use Flickr – Basics & Beyond: an introduction to Flickr.

3. Newbies Guide to Flickr: another introduction to Flickr.

Week 5: Social bookmarking & tagging

This week we’re looking at social bookmarking & tagging. Once you’ve read this information, have a go at the activities we’ve organised for you. You’ll see there are 3 activities listed, but you only have to complete 2 of them. If you get time, have a go at the optional activity.

Remember to add a post to your blog about this week’s activity!

What is social bookmarking?
Social bookmarking enables you to store and share websites, photos and other resources within an online community and is a way to help you stay up-to-date. It enables you to organise and file websites, photos & articles for future reference, and to also browse other’s bookmarks to discover resources they may never have found using a search engine.

There are several freely available social bookmarking tools including del.icio.us and furl. CiteULike is another social bookmarking tool which is primarily used to bookmark scholarly articles. You must first register for these services and you may then be given the option to download a ‘bookmarklet’ in the toolbar of their browser. When you find a site you like, you just need to click on a ‘bookmarklet’ widget within your Internet browser to assign tags & add the link to your social bookmarking tool.

What is tagging?
If you’ve ever used a subject heading in a library catalogue or a descriptor in a database you’re already familiar with tagging.

A tag is just a keyword or term, and tagging is the process of assigning or associating a tag to something. We usually talk about tagging with online content like websites, digital photos, or blog posts, but the concept is the same as your handwritten notes on the family snapshots.

Tags are completely unstructured and freeform. You choose terms that are meaningful for you, so if “cooking” makes more sense to you than “cookery”, you’re free to use it.

Tags are therefore used as a means of finding the websites, photos etc. you have stored in your social bookmarking tool such as del.icio.us.

Just keep in mind that tags which have two or more words to them need to be joined together so that there are no spaces between the words e.g. chocolate_chip_cookies and ChocolateChipCookies are both one tag, while chocolate chip cookies is three tags.

A short video clip
Take a look at this clip created by the CommonCraft team and made available via YouTube. It explains social bookmarking really well. Plus it’ll give you a break from reading! Please note: You’ll need headphones to listen to it.

Folksonomies? What are they?
Anyone who’s used UDC to catalogue a book knows that there are pages (and pages and pages…) of rules for how it should be used. You are also required to use the exact terms specified. With a structured system like UDC, the rules are essential to keep everyone using it consistently. UDC is a taxonomy, a professionally developed system in which a controlled vocabulary is used to categorize materials.

A folksonomy is like a taxonomy, but without all the rules. Unlike taxonomies, folksonomies are created from the bottom up by anyone who wishes to tag an object. It is classification by people – hence folksonomy. Folksonomies grow from the tags that users apply on bookmarking sites like del.icio.us. As you add bookmarks to del.icio.us or photos to Flickr, you see the tags that other users have associated with similar items. You might even like some of them and decide to apply the tag to your own bookmarks.

Folksonomies are not hierarchical, meaning they lack the “Broader Term, Narrower Term, Related Term” structure often seen in taxonomies. Also, because they do not use a controlled vocabulary, terms can change quickly, there can be multiple tags for the same concept (library, libraries), and the same tag may be used for different concepts.

del.icio.us lets you see the bookmarks that other users have added and how they are tagged. This open sharing of links is called social bookmarking. As bookmarks are added and tagged, a folksonomy emerges. Just as you might click a subject heading in Unicorn to see what the library has on a particular topic, clicking a tag in del.icio.us shows you all the bookmarks with that tag. And in the same way that using a subject heading can narrow a catalogue search, using a folksonomy tag can save you from sorting through 2 million Google hits by showing you what other people have found useful on that topic.

Clear as mud? Don’t worry, this week’s activities will help you understand what tagging and social bookmarking are.

What are you doing this week?
This week, you’ll be exploring a couple of popular social bookmarking resources that use tagging: del.icio.us and Flickr.

del.icio.us is a site that lets you save and organize links to web content. It’s kind of like the ‘Bookmarks’ or ‘Favorites’ folders in Firefox or Internet Explorer. Only better. With del.icio.us, you never have to remember which computer you saved that link on. So if you’re going from work to home, or to different computers around the library, all of your bookmarks are always available.

Flickr is specifically for digital photographs and images. Like del.icio.us, once you’ve saved an image in Flickr it’s accessible from where ever you happen to be. It’s easy to share your photos, too.

Further Readings (optional!)

• The Brave New World of Social Bookmarking: Everything You Always Wanted to Know But Were Too Afraid to Ask (PDF), Amanda Etches-Johnson.
• The Hive Mind: Folksonomies & User-Based Tagging, Ellyssa Kroski.
• Get Flickr-tastic!, Andrea Mercado.
• Hamster Sudoku – Uses images of hamsters from Flickr for you to play a picture version of the popular game.