Introduction
I must confess, I am a bit of a late bloomer where Delicious is concerned. I didn't quite "get" what we were supposed to do for this assignment, and so I think I got out of it, what I put into it. Now that I'm putting together my experiences for this blog, it occurs to me that when we started this project, I did not fully understand what I was looking for because I did not have an adequate understanding of the keywords "web 2.0" and "technology" that I was using so early in the course. I found sites that answered the question, but I lacked the foundation of understanding the chronology of library technology. After learning more about the different types of library technology that is available, and after being introduced to examples of social networking and web2.0, I feel that I am more equipped to appreciate Delicious. If we were to begin this assignment today, I know I would be more confident and less confused with its benefits. But like I said, I'm a late bloomer. So I will continue to monitor and use Delicious, because like anything, the more you use it, the more confident and efficient you become in its use. The title of my post is intended to be a bit of a pun, but also, to reflect the fact that although I did check out Delicious and bookmark different websites, I did so in a limited fashion.
Appetizer - Delicious Favorites
Many of the pages I bookmarked were those sites I was monitoring as Technology sources, so I did not have to "enter" Delicious to access them. Once I bookmarked them, they were conveniently placed on my Delicious toolbar, and I found this to be quite helpful. One thing that I appreciate about searching for sites to bookmark on Delicious is the timeliness of the postings. I just did a tag search for HarperCollins, since this is the publisher that recently imposed a restriction on the number of times their ebooks may be checked out. I found the first 17 pages of 1086 posts were directly related to the current controversy. This reveals the timely nature of the information you get when researching Delicious. One can use Delicious to do a tag search and find up to the minute information.
I also appreciated the fact that you can access your favorite websites from any computer. Going back and forth between work and home, I sometimes forget where I have bookmarked a site. I have some at work, and some at home; Delicious allows me to carry them with me wherever I go.
Another feature of Delicious that I liked was the note feature. I can see where at some point your bookmarks grow so large you may forget why you put them there. This feature helps you to remember what the site contains so you don't have to open it first and read through it, saving yourself time. It also provides you the option of recording where you found the bookmark. At a glance, this can save you time as you can immediately see the name of it's contributor whose bookmarks you value, without pulling up their entire bookmark list. When you look through my bookmarks, you may find your own names mentioned, because I got them from you!
Main Course - Delicious Research
As for doing research using Delicious, I limited myself to just finding interesting sites to my keyword searches. It was definitely a different way of researching than just doing a search engine search, mainly because these were sites already considered important enough to tag by other Delicious users. This would narrow down the field when researching a topic. When searching the term "library 2.0" I came across 5,789 hits in Delicious; on Google I got 101 million. More importantly, the very first hits were scholarly articles. Delicious allows you a smaller search area, and this may make research easier, but it is far from complete. Like Wikipedia, I think Delicious provides some great sites to note, but it shouldn't be the end of your searching. Incidentally, it is kind of funny to note that Google's second hit on "library 2.0" was Wikipedia!
Dessert - Delicious Take-out?
Would I use Delicious on the job? I asked my co-workers their feelings toward it and I was met with responses such as "it's faster to just Google it" to "what's that?" Apparently, librarians are not as tech savvy as I thought. It is always easier to do what you are used to. I am currently working on a Wiki for my department, so I will probably include a page of "favorite" websites rather than push them to set up Delicious accounts. Academically, I think that it is worth checking Delicious when doing research, and I will continue to add to my bookmarks and use it as a research source. Personally, I did enjoy my bee sites....but I find it so much faster to bookmark something directly to my computer. So, for personal bookmarks, I think I'm stuck in a rut! ;-) But, speaking of bees, that reminds me of honey, and honey is delicious....meaning: no more dishin' on Delicious because it's time for dinner - and it's Friday, so no diet! ;-)
Fantastic post! I love how you set the body up :) I feel the same way with Delicious, now that I had to think about it, I have learned and appreciated it more. An annoyance I always have is each of my classes have a ton of sites they want me to check out. (Honestly I just now thought of this)All I have to do is save them all, then I won't have to go into Blackboard and figure out which sessions I saw what it.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, good post, good writing!
Yes, and then you can "bundle" them under the Library class name in Delicious! That was one thing I caught on to later in Delicious - was the convenient way you can organize your bookmarks. And once you tag your bookmark Libr105 you can instantly pull up all of our tags for this class. You can do that for each of your classes! I may need to take this class a second time because I keep learning new things from even our old lessons! ;-)
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