> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.lorcandempsey.net/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# Social bookmarking in the library: a new bibliographic tissue?
- URL: https://www.lorcandempsey.net/social-bookmarking-in-the-library-a-new-bibliographic-tissue/
- Published: 2006-01-08T23:27:53.000Z
- Updated: 2020-10-28T20:58:58.000Z
- Author: Lorcan Dempsey
- Tags: Social, Systems

PennTags looks like a very interesting experiment.

> PennTags lets you organize and share your bookmarks. You can use the [UPennToolbar](https://labs.library.upenn.edu/toolbars/?ref=lorcandempsey.net) or the [PennTags Bookmarklet](https://labs.library.upenn.edu/bookmarklets/?ref=lorcandempsey.net) to post websites into your tagspace. PennTags can also be used to tag Franklin and VCaT records. \[[PennTags /](https://tags.library.upenn.edu/?ref=lorcandempsey.net)\]

Functionally, it looks very like [del.icio.us](https://del.icio.us/?ref=lorcandempsey.net). Graphically, it looks well with pictures of birds!  
A few interesting things for me:

- I have suggested several times that we will see greater use made of a new bibliographic tissue which connects the user environment and database resources. I am thinking of citation managers, reading lists, social bookmarking (see [citulike](https://www.citeulike.org/?ref=lorcandempsey.net) and [unalog](https://unalog.com/?ref=lorcandempsey.net)) and perhaps RSS feeds. These are personal and shared collections of data and links.
- These provide one example of another emerging feature of our bibliographic apparatus – we will increasingly have discovery or ‘rendezvous’ experiences outside the catalog, or other library resources, where the user may want to be linked transparently back into a library service for fulfilment. This example shows a local bookmarking service. Citation managers, reading lists, and so on, as I just mentioned, are others. As we expose more data to search engines, that provides another example. It is not straightforward doing this in a robust generalized way.
- Is there a scale issue here? Users need to be motivated. Would they rather benefit from collaboratively meshing (‘mesh-up’?) with a broader range of users in a wider service – del.icio.us itself for example – or in a more academically focused service like citulike? Or …?

Incidentally, I seemed to be getting strange results with some of the catalog links that I tried.  
Update: Michael Winkler left a comment that the catalog bug is fixed.  
Via [diglet](https://gort.ucsd.edu/mtdocs/archives/diglet/006070.html?ref=lorcandempsey.net).