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Collaborative Librarianship

Volume 3 Issue 3 Article 9

2011

Social Bookmarking Sites: A Review

Laura L. Barnes Prairie Institute, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, [email protected]

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Recommended Barnes, Laura L. (2011) " Sites: A Review," Collaborative Librarianship: Vol. 3 : Iss. 3 , Article 9. DOI: https://doi.org/10.29087/2011.3.3.09 Available at: https://digitalcommons.du.edu/collaborativelibrarianship/vol3/iss3/9

This Review is brought to you for free and open access by Digital Commons @ DU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Collaborative Librarianship by an authorized editor of Digital Commons @ DU. For more information, please contact [email protected],[email protected]. Barnes: Social Bookmarking Sites

Social Bookmarking Sites: A Review

Laura L. Barnes ([email protected]) Prairie Research Institute, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Keywords: social bookmarking; collaborative Features of Social Bookmarking Sites reference; collaborative collection development The table below compares the features of several Introduction popular social bookmarking sites. All of the sites listed offer link annotation/notes, RSS feeds Social bookmarking tools allow users to store, based on tags and user names, the ability to manage, search, organize, and share their make individual links private, and - bookmarks online and access them from any- lets that allow users to add links to their libraries where. Although these tools have been around easily. Another resource that provides links to since the mid-90s, librarians have not generally social bookmarking tools is Wikipedia's List of embraced them as tools for building information Social Bookmarking resources. However, these are incredibly useful [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_b tools for collaboration and information sharing. ookmarking_websites]. Following is a brief description of some of the more popular social bookmarking sites and ways in which librarians are using them to help users navigate the Web.

Site URL Cost Export Groups Other useful features format * http://ww Free HTML no • Toolbar includes recent w.delicious. bookmarks and provides quick com links to frequently used site tools. • Allows users to license bookmark streams under Creative Commons. • API available for programmers. Diigo http://ww Tiered pricing, RSS, CSV, yes • Toolbar features sticky notes, w.diigo.com starting with HTML highlighting, read it later features, free. See as well as Add a Bookmark. API http://www.di available for programmers. igo.com/premi um for details. Educator discount.

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Connotea http://ww Free RIS, BibTeX, yes • Autofills bibliographic w.. Endnote, information pulled from org MODS resources. Works best with PDFs (XML), Word from scholarly publications. 2007 • Imports files from citation Bibliography management software. (XML), Plain • Developed by Nature Publishing. Text, RSS Used chiefly by scientists. CiteULike http://ww Free, with a RIS, BibTeX, yes • Autofills bibliographic w.. Gold option PDF, RTF, information pulled from certain org/ (~$49/year) Plain Text scholarly publications. • Imports files from citation management software using BibTeX or RIS format. Also allows formatting of bibliographies as plain text, HTML, or PDF for inserting directly into documents. • Synch CiteULike account to Delicious and . • Gold account includes a custom home page, PDF annotation, priority support, no ads, display customizations, extra citation formats. • Used chiefly by scientists. http://pinb One-time fee, XML, HTML, no • Both tags and individual links can oard.in based on the JSON be private. number of • Includes Read Later status for current users items you want to save without ($9.39 as of July filling out a form. The read later 29, 2011). bookmarklet adds pages to unread $25/year list without prompting for further archival information. account • Configure to automatically mirror includes a public bookmarks from accounts bookmark on Delicious, , Read It archiving service Later, and Google Reader. and full text • Collect and archive tweets, and save searching of the every URL in main stream archive. or Twitter favorites as a bookmark. • Filter RSS feeds with up to three tags by modifying the feed URL. *Note that the features offered on Delicious are current as of July 29, 2011. Recently Yahoo sold the tool to Avos; ac- cording to the Delicious FAQ, the transfer took place in July 2011.

I primarily use Delicious and Diigo, with Pin- automatically. This was particularly reassuring board as a backup. I particularly like Pinboard's when the future of Delicious was in doubt. Pin- mirroring function because I know that my Deli- board's tweet archiving feature is also extremely cious bookmarks are backed up elsewhere

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useful, especially for links that I retweet from interesting items to your bookmarks. Browsing others. the P2TagTeam list allows me to locate relevant resources to add to my own bibliographies Scholarly researchers may prefer Connotea or quickly. Tagging is also useful for building CiteULike because they offer the ability to create online collections of resources in specific subject bibliographies and easily share information with areas. I teach workshops in green business and citation management tools like Mendeley and green libraries and have developed extensive Endnote. bibliographies that I distribute to attendees. Be- cause new information on both of these topics Social Bookmarking and Libraries appears almost daily, I include a link to the rele- vant Delicious Social bookmarking sites are useful for more [http://delicious.com/tsmom1219/ltls_green_li than storing bookmarks; they are also valuable braries, tools for building lists of topical resources on the http://delicious.com/tsmom1219/green_busine fly and sharing those lists with others. ss] on the bibliography, rather than updating the bibliographies themselves. Cooperative tagging involves using a common word or phrase among a group of people who Since social bookmarking tools automatically have similar interests. As a form of cooperative create RSS feeds for every tag and for every collection development, it is an easy way to user, I can also integrate those feeds into web share relevant content with clients and other pages. For example, I use tags to populate RSS librarians. Just pick a tag, recruit volunteers, and boxes in the LibGuides I create. See “Getting start bookmarking. Started with : A Guide for Non- profit Organizations and Government Agencies” For example, I participate in P2TagTeam [http://uiuc.libguides.com/social-media-for- [http://www.delicious.com/tag/p2tagteam], a nonprofits] for an example. coordinated effort by the Pollution Prevention Information Exchange [http://www.p2rx.org] The “group” feature, offered by Diigo, Con- to share resources about environmental sustain- notea, and CiteULike, is another tool that li- ability. The ten participants involved in this tag- brarians can use to connect with users to dis- ging effort have bookmarked over 900 items! cover and share new resources. This feature of- ISTC’s Sustainable Electronics Initiative ten includes an e-mail subscription option, [http://www.sustainelectronics.illinois.edu] which sends a daily digest of new items shared uses the same technique to share information on among the group members. This is an excellent Diigo [http://www.diigo.com/tag/icare]. Ad- way to keep up with new resources on specific ditionally, I contribute to the Special Libraries topics of interest. Association's Environment and Resources Man- agement cooperative tagging effort, where the In summary, social bookmarking has changed new bookmarks appear in a box on the wiki's the way that I identify and share digital re- front page sources and has become an effective part of my [http://wiki.sla.org/display/SLADERM/ERM professional toolbox. D+Wiki+Home+Page].

Another advantage of cooperative tagging is that you can see the resources that other users have identified by browsing the tag and saving

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