einna 2.0

13.  Learn about tagging and discover del.icio.us (a social bookmarking site).

While I wasn’t sold on del.icio.us originally, I loved it once I started exploring it.  I created an account and transferred some of the bookmarks I have on my computer to the account, so that I can access them elsewhere.  Now if I come across an intriguing library-related website at home I can simply save it to my del.icio.us favorites.  One of the sites I tagged is Local Harvest, a directory of local and organic farms.  It has been saved by 1496 people; when I click on that I could see other sites they’ve saved and had fun exploring.  I also had a good time exploring the PLCMC del.icio.us page, mostly because of some of the ideas on there.  RSS feeds from the catalog?!  Using MeeboMe for IM Reference?!  It was also helpful because since they have so many links I could see other ways to navigate besides the default chronological order, especially by the tags on the right of the page.  We could set up a del.icio.us page that parallels (or replaces) the Online Resources page of the HCPL website…it would be more accessible to young people doing research.  And while I’ve been using the news reader, I might prefer putting links to all those sites in my del.icio.us account and clicking on them.  I like seeing the page itself, rather than just the headlines, because I’d be more likely to read them and not simply skim them.

 14.  Explore Technorati and learn how tags work with blogs.

I self-centeredly searched for “einna” in technorati, and found my blog!  Is it still called “googling” when you’re not searching Google?  I have heard of Technorati, but haven’t used it before now.  One thing I felt was interesting in the description of what’s new was that they have “worked hard to make serendipitous discovery of interesting stuff easier and more intuitive.”  Part of why I’ve always loved libraries is this possibility of discovery, not just knowing what you’re looking for and finding it, so this struck a chord with me.  I explored the different areas and looked at the posts with the mdlearn2 tag.  The explanation of Technorati tagging said that if your blog uses categories, you can simply add Technorati tags to your categories.  I added the mdlearn2 tag to this post and will check back to see if it worked!  The more I looked around in Technorati the more I liked it (although I could see it being a strong cause of time-suckage in my life).

P.S.  The amazing thing I’ve discovered about Technorati is how fast it is.  After I embedded the Lord Waldemart YouTube video to my blog, I went back to the Technorati page.  Under the video it says “123 reactions” and my blog post was there!  Amazing.

P.P.S.  The mdlearn2 tag worked through the categories.  And I didn’t even have to mess with HTML.