Transcript Using del.icio.us in AskAway

Using del.icio.us in AskAway
Part of the AskAway Best Practices session
November 16, 2006
Joy Schwarz
Winnefox Library System
[email protected]
First of all… what is del.icio.us?
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It’s a web site at http://del.icio.us
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It’s pronounced just like the word delicious
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The del.icio.us domain name is a “domain hack” using the .us domain to
form a word. It uses the same top-level domain a lot of libraries use, like
http://www.hustisford.lib.wi.us
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It’s a social bookmarking web service for storing, sharing, and discovering
web bookmarks
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It’s free to use
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It’s been around since 2003 & was bought by Yahoo about a year ago
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It’s part of the Web 2.0 movement -- emphasizing online collaboration and
sharing among users
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Think of it as bookmarks on steroids
What makes it so special?
• It allows us to collaborate so we may contribute to a set of
shared bookmarks
• Users tag each of their bookmarks with multiple freely-chosen
keywords; this is also called folksonomy. These are not Sears
or Library of Congress subject headings. 
• You can see a combined view of everyone's bookmarks that
use a tag. For example the URL
http://del.icio.us/popular/photography shows all the pages
del.icio.us users have tagged "photography".
• RSS newsfeeds are available for both bookmarks and tags.
You can subscribe to these newsfeeds in your newsfeed
aggregator, like Bloglines www.Bloglines.com
So what does this have to do with AskAway?
Why am I telling you about it?
Like you…
• When I monitor chat, I want to have good resources
handy so I can quickly find the answer for a patron
• I turn to the Librarians Index to the Internet for librarianselected resources on topics, but I don’t always find what
I’m looking for there
• My reference skills aren’t as strong as I’d like in some
subject areas, so I’ve been working to build up some
good bookmarks for myself
So…
• I’ve been moving my bookmarks out of my web
browser into del.icio.us so I have a toolbox
handy just for when I monitor chat
• I named the set of bookmarks
http://del.icio.us/askawaywisc
• And then I thought, what if everyone in the
consortium wanted to share?
• We could all benefit!
What I’m proposing
Everyone in the AskAway Consortium has
access to add items to the
http://del.icio.us/askawaywisc bookmarks
Here’s how you can participate –
the basics:
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Go to http://del.icio.us in your web browser
Log in with
username: askawaywisc
password: forward
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Add a bookmark:
It’s easiest to use buttons you’ve added to your web browser
It’s also easy to use the bookmarklet added to your toolbar
Find info on installing either of these at http://del.icio.us/help/saving
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Tag the item:
Use a single word
If you want to use multiple words, combine them with a + sign
As an additional tag, add your initials.
It’s OK to stay logged in to del.icio.us all the time; that way you can easily
use the buttons to bookmark web pages to del.icio.us as you see them.
In conclusion…
• If you’re not interested in participating right now,
consider using Bloglines or other newsfeed
aggregator to subscribe to its RSS feed:
http://del.icio.us/rss/askawaywisc
• So, the bookmarks are there for you if you’d like
to use them!
• I look forward to seeing new bookmarks appear
there. 