MLA CE WEEK 4

This week we have been exploring the DEL.ICIO.US Website. This tool allows users the ability to store bookmarks that can then be retrieved on any computer, at any location. Users can adjust privacy controls to allow, or prohibit sharing of individual bookmarks with other site visitors. Users can assign any number of "keyword tags" to individual bookmarks. Having bookmarks on one password protected site, stored under multiple individually-assigned tags, certainly facilitates content retrieval. I have over 11oo bookmarks, and have downloaded them to this site. I am in the slow process of assigning tags to these bookmarks and weeding out those no longer of value in my work. From an accessibility standpoint, I think this site has real value. It is wonderful having not to continually e-mail myself a backup copy of my bookmarks.

As a search tool, I think there may be value in the concept, but it needs to be refined. Searching the site to find similar content in other's bookmarks may help one locate needed information. I conducted some searches in forensic pathology and was unable to locate the sites I was looking for because no one had bookmarked these sites and/or the bookmarks were not part of the public record. Common sites (Amazon.com) will have many bookmarks but unusual sites may not be bookmarked at all. I found sites bookmarked under this tag, however, they had only minimal forensic content. Many broken links led nowhere. The tags and notes seem of limited value in sorting through generated results. Each individual developed their own scheme for tagging and followed this scheme with greater or lesser precision. Pages still have to be visited and reviewed to see if value can be found.

Overall, I think this is a very useful tool that will improve over time.