I started using Good Reads when some of my librarian friends got me into it, and I've since lured my coworkers into the fun. I like it because it's a great way to keep track of the books I've read and enjoyed, and much neater than my paper reading log (though I'm very thankful to Joyce Saricks for giving it to me!). Also, of course, it's now the first place I go to look for titles I'll enjoy reading based on what my friends did or did not enjoy. But wow, LibraryThing is really fun! I didn't think I'd be that drawn in by it, but I love how much information it has on all the titles. Since I'm one of those people who has my nonfiction books arranged in Dewey order on my bookshelves, LibraryThing is going to help me legitimately catalog my books. And for me, the two sites have different purposes, besides wasting twice as much time: LibraryThing seems more concrete, and I'm going to use it specifically to catalog books that I own. Good Reads is for books I've read, but don't necessarily own. The jury's still out on whether I'm going to spring for the $25 lifetime membership...
As far as tagging goes, I have been quite negligent in tagging the posts in this blog, assuming that almost no one is reading. I definitely see their usefulness, however. And Technorati is one of those great tools that pulls the tagging function out of individual blogs and uses it to facilitate an ongoing conversation of bloggers.
Finally, del.icio.us, which I use regularly and enthusiastically. I started by exporting all of my browser bookmarks to my del.icio.us account, and as a result some of my tags are too general and kind of a mess. But all my links are in one place and it's great! I'm also working on a del.icio.us page for the library's "helpful links" page. It opens up a lot of options, not only for displaying the links on the website, but also for staff and members of the community to suggest links through del.icio.us. See: library links and my links.
I have found that assigning tags is rather an intuitive art, and it's usually necessary to apply a number of tags, ranging from general categories to the very specific, all for the ultimate purpose of findability. I especially enjoy that aspect of the social Web: namely, all the tools that people can use to catalog, formally or informally, information that they'd like to come back to or share with others.
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you're way ahead, anne! i've finally caught up a bit with the lessons, so you can go over them and see what you haven't done already.
good reads is very addictive; i haven't been on there lately, but when i am there's going to be a lot to add! thanks for passing that on.
my del.icio.us account needs to be cleaned up, too. maybe i'll add more items to library thing, too...one of these days...
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