After doing the readings and having worked on our group project here are a couple of (random) thoughts:
- This isn’t specific to social bookmarking; it’s more of a social software observation: tech skills matter. Take a look at our group blog post, in particular our issues with making our social bookmarking site, well, social. And if you haven’t had the chance to look at the Corrado and Fredrick article then check it out. It’s full of great tips but at the same time it’s a little daunting when MySQL and PHP and CSS keep coming up. There’s no rule that says that we’ve got to be familiar with various platforms and software, but wouldn’t it be helpful if we were? Web 2.0 has helped make things easier for the less technically inclined (*points at self*) and has helped level the playing field (to some extent) but I don’t want to get complacent when it comes to the techy part of techological things…
- I’m no cataloguer but I’ve got a secret love for controlled vocabulary. At times this made the project more challenging, and maybe even a little frustrating, so it was important to keep re-reading Mercado’s words:
This gives you an opportunity to observe a user-based classification, and learn what your users think your data is about, and possibly using that to your advantage to, say, improve your classification, or study how the patron mind works.
Searching by tags is really not that different from keyword searching. I love keyword searches, and natural language search functions – so why am I poo poohing user created tags? Probably because I’m still green enough to be snooty about such things. But we’ve got to keep reminding ourselves that it’s all about the user; if they can’t find or access information on their terms then what’s the point of all the work that we’re doing?