Learning 2.0: Assignment #13

As a librarian, public tagging is a bit of a concern to me. In the broadest sense, everyone organizes information slightly differently when left to their own devices. This is precisely when, despite its flaws, systems like Library of Congress Subject Headings are so important.

Visit any popular community on Livejournal and you will see how disastrous tags can be when hundreds of people are creating their own tags. At least del.icio.us tries to contain the madness a bit by suggesting popular tags, a feature I hope users take advantage of more often than not (though I realize that hope may be overly optimistic).

I created my own del.icio.us page a few months ago and got very into it for about two days (as is my wont). I think the site is incredibly useful as a mobile bookmark system; certainly the community tags and suggestions can also lead the user to other interesting sites. That said, public del.icio.us groups can also lead to slight chaos, as exhibited by the QL.Things page -- and then how useful is it, really?

Feel free to peruse my del.icio.us page, even though I haven't updated it in forever. You'll see it became a bit of a catch-all for web-based recipes, plus a few extras -- including this gem, which I still consider one of the best things the Internet has ever created.