So, how many book mark apps does there need to be? There were three that won awards, and one honorable mention, and none were del..cio.us. Against advice, I looked at two--inadvertently, actually. Both Ma.gnolia (#1) and Furl (#2) are social bookmarking spaces, and they both allow private lists, bookmarklets, sharing, and searching, but for some reason I really like Furl. So I read more of the documentation. Not only did it seem a little more likely that I could set up a private list, I could move in "favorites" from Internet Explorer, Firefox, and more. Their "tags" are "not as intrusive" and are called keywords. I'm not sure what that means. And you can use a bookmarklet to add new URLs to your account. I does have popular items of the day and recomended links, other members who saved this and "Furlmates"--other Furl members who have similar patterns.
Now how something like Furl could be used in a library. Well, there's the search/research angle that's been touched on before. Furlmates could lead to reading groups at the library. "Pathfinders" of online databases and sites could be created and made public, and linked to the library wiki, or web site--whichever is more "branded", I suppose. Furl can save an "archived copy (with refresh)"--which means if the page is down, or is changed, a copy is saved just as you read it--a boon to research paper writers.
I don't doubt that Ma.gnolia and Del.icio.us have a lot of the same features, but Furl laid them out so that I could find (and I admit, print them out) easily, and so write about them. It certainly makes me want to use it. Now it means I'll have to check out the other two and see why they're so popular! Ack.
No comments:
Post a Comment