Social bookmarking tools have been around for awhile. Several years ago I was taking a course for my Educational Technology program where we were introduced to Backflip. At that time it was, to me, it was a very innovative product and I was excited about organizing my bookmarks and making them available on the web. Backflip uses folders to keep you organized which was fine for the time because that’s the way librarians try to do things. It’s a whole new world now, and I must say, I really find the tagging aspect of the newer tools to be absolutely great! We have been using Furl in our reference department as a way to manage useful bookmarks for answering questions at the information desk. We debated between Furl and del.icio.us and I’m not sure why we chose one over the other. Since then, del.icio.us seems to be the front runner, so we are going to switch to it.
I’m glad to have had the opportunity to rethink about social bookmarking. I think it could be useful if you are in a position where you are trying to help certain classes by providing appropriate websites. Personally, I find myself relying more on my searching skills to find sites than keeping a list of things I “might” need sometime.
