Case Studies - Social Bookmarking in Libraries

Looking at the del.icio.us account for La Grange Park Library, I made a few—perhaps incorrect—assumptions. I’m assuming that it is a fairly new endeavor since the “collection” is relatively small (only 57 tags). However, looking at the dates indicates that it has been use for almost two years. Maybe the tag has not been publicized and is only being used by library staff at this point in time. I wonder how these tags are being used. Is it for staff purposes? Is it for user purposes? Many tags only have one item. This does not really achieve the collocation purposes for which social bookmarking is often praised.

Lansing Public Library on the other hand is very extensive (591 tags). The account, although seemingly newer (about 1 yr old from the dates on tags), is used more frequently. From this quantity, I am assuming that the users of the library are encouraged to use the tag when they come across sites of interest. If that is the case, it is a great way for the library to shift some of its workload of categorizing and finding sites of interest to its users. While there were some problems with plurals (Airline & airlines), spelling (basball & baseball), spelling (blog & blogs) and tag choice (blogger & blogging & blogs), I was impressed by the relative high consistency.

After visiting the Lansing Public Library website, there is a brief—albeit buried—reference to their del.icio.us account. From the explanation, it would appear that the links are librarian-tagged rather than by the patrons themselves. It does seem (from searching the site for del.icio.us references) that the library notifies its users from time to time of important timely tags such as the Olympics tag.

The Maui Community College Library gives some direction as to how its delicious account is currently being used by providing a few of the links on the homepage. By putting the links on the homepage, as well as the del.icio.us icon and link, they are promoting their use of delicious.

Seldovia Library seems to be using its del.icio.us account for internal purposes since most of the tags are library-relatad. Some libraries' social bookmarking initiative, like the Thomas Ford Memorial Library del.icio.us, demonstrate a slightly more effective use of social bookmarking since some tags are used more than just a few times.

I was surprised that the libraries that are using social bookmarking (some quite extensively) do not make more of an effort to inform their patrons of this new technology and how the library is using it. In order to be effective, libraries who are using delicious should provide some explanation as to how and why they’re using it. They should also give some basic training in social bookmarking (online tutorial). This will encourage users to see the benefit and then use it.