I have signed onto Del.icio.us, LibraryThing and CiteULike.
Del.icio.us
Del.icio.us' slogan is 'The tastiest bookmarks on the web. Save your own or see what's fresh now!' and claims to have the biggest collection of bookmarks in the universe. It is designed for a whole range of websites. When I joined I found a site that interested me personally entitled 'Fans give thumbs down to new Harry Potter-Film-Entertainment' from theage.com.au. I also tagged 'Unclutterer', to help me with my organisational skills, as well as 'Del.icio.us. Libraries' by Melange, and 'Welcome to the Blogging Libraries Wiki' to bring me further into the library community. These examples of my own choices show that Del.icio.us can be used for so many different websites for any interest. I found no evidence that Del.icio.us needs a particular browser or software. It was very easy to join. Del.icio.us, although is similar to EndNote in that it is a tool to have a list of useful articles and websites that can be returned to at any time, it does not format the references into university standard referencing standards and styles. Del.icio.us is easier to organise the bookmarks than Favourites on traditional browser because the user can name the tag an article into the 'popular tags' given. In a way, the articles can be 'catalogued'. Socially, a user can join 'Networks' of various kinds which will allow for social tagging. To join Del.icio.us, simply join Del.icio.us. There is no need for payment, registration, software instalment or additions to the toolbar. Instead of the addition to the toolbar, there are Del.icio.us icons on many articles found on the internet and if the user has an account, it is easy to add the article to the user's own Del.icio.us site by clicking on the icon and following the steps.
LibraryThing
LibraryThing calls itself 'A home for your books' that is, 'an easy, library-quality catalog'. It claims that LibraryThing is a community of 600,000 book lovers that connects you to people who read what you do. This can be done by entering what you are reading. LibraryThing is much more community based than Del.icio.us. Users are encouraged to join groups of like interest. Whether the user is a Science Fiction Fan, or a Folio Society devotee, they will find a group that suits. Users can read recommendation and reviews and discuss their literary loves. Users can 'find friends' and feel part of the reading community. The user can also find local places that are linked to LibraryThing in their local area on a map. To give an example of how these tools come together, I clicked onto the group 'Twilight Club', with my personal views that it is a disgrace to the vampire genre pushed aside momentarily. I clicked into the topic 'Twilight movie reviews: what are the fans saying?' and a link to this page;
http://www.examiner.com/x-562-Book-Examiner~y2008m11d21-Twilight-reviews-what-are-the-fans-saying
The group member then discussed their views of the adaptation of the book. I was pleased to read in the web link that the audience laughed to the hero's soppy facial expressions. Twilight fans did notice it too! LibraryThing requires no particular software, browser, payment or added toolbars. LibraryThing is equally about collecting tags and sharing tags. Like Del.icio.us, it does not give the citation in university standard referencing standards and styles, which EndNote does. As the traditional 'favourites' tag collects articles for you, it does not organise them for you as LibraryThing does. In LibrrayThing, the tags go into your own catalogue.
CiteULike
CiteULike, on the other hand, is more focussed on the academic than the social. It claims to be able to bookmark new articles and papers with one click using the CiteULike button on your browser. Click View>Toolbars>Bookmark Toolbars> and dragging the URL onto the Toolbars, CiteULike will keep all academic journals and related in that bookmark. Personally, it is not easy to set up and I now have another tag on my toolbar. CiteULike allows you to find these articles without payment. CiteULike has a Tag Cloud ot help you see which of the topics hold the most information. It has many supported cites. It works mainly with Firefox as a browser but will give help if you want to use Internet Explorer or Safari. In EndNote, you type in the citation and EndNote will add that to your Word Document. In CiteULike, it will keep the link of the article and allow you to use the 'BibTex' function for referencing. Again, Favourites holds the information without a cataloguing systems, which CiteULike does offer. Much like other websites, CiteULike allows you to create a profile, join groups and know your 'neighbours' who tag the same articles that you do.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Hi Katie,
ReplyDeleteI found your discussion of the three applications really interesting. I'm using del.icio.us and library thing too and have found them to be an effective and fun way to store sites and books I'm interested in. I haven't had a look at citeulike yet but will check it out - although you found it a little problematic to set up? Any tips for how to make this process easier? Do you think you'd use it to organise your academic references over endnote or del.icio.us?
Hi Cath,
ReplyDeleteCiteULike is problematic. Setting it up is alright as you follow the steps. There are images of each of the steps, so don't worry about that. CiteULike goes on the toolbar. There is still a lot I don't know about how to use it. When you go through one of the databases they support and find an article, I don't know how to effectively use CitULike. I managed to drag the article up to the toolbar but I don't think it has gone "into" CiteULike. I don't want all my articles to go on my toolbar. So I still have problems to work through. I don't really like CitULike!