My Final Project- Delicious Bookmarks

For my final project option for LIS 635, I wanted to pick a project that would directly benefit the staff and patrons of my library. To this end, I chose the option of reviewing the ALA/RUSA Best Free Reference Web Sites- Combined Index, 1999-2006 and developing a Library 2.0 strategy to promote it to users and our library staff.

For the purposes of this project, I chose to create a Delicious Bookmark account and compile these websites in the Delicious account to share with our library patrons and staff. After the project and course are complete, promoting the finished product will be easy. Delicious offers the ability to embed a link to the Bookmark account directly in our library website by inserting the HTML code into the hypertext of the webpage. At that point, anyone who visits the library webpage will be able to access this Delicious Bookmark account just as easily as you will here. This project will be great for patrons, because the RUSA/MARS Combined Index of Best Free Websites is truly a terrific reference resource.

But, the project will also be very useful for staff- they will be able to search subjects by keyword, tag, tag bundle, or tag cloud. Not only will the bookmarks aid them in locating dependable free reference websites, but they can add their own tags as well!

Setting up the account was easy. I just followed the directions on the Delicious website, which were very through and easy to understand. Each website had to be added individually, which was somewhat time consuming. Although saving Bookmarks can be done manually by typing in each URL, Delicious also offers a bookmarking tool named Bookmarklets. Information on how to save a Bookmark can be found by clicking on the Save a New Bookmark link. The Delicious websites describes them as follows: "Bookmarklets (Buttons) are links you add to your browser's Bookmarks Toolbar. These are the easy way to post and view your bookmarks on the Delicious." I chose this option. It still took a fair amount of time to import all the RUSA websites, but using the Bookmarklets tool streamlined the process and eliminated the "human error" element- typos!

I think one of the best features of Delicious is the ease of use- the site provides easy to follow instructions, so that a near novice can create a list of bookmarks AND figure out how to promote it to others. Obviously, the Bookmarks are also available to other Delicious members because it is a social bookmarking site.

Thanks to the ability to embed a link in a website, I am able to embed the same link here for you to view the final product. So, without further delay... just click on the link below to view my final project option- SchmalingRef Bookmarks from the ALA/RUSA Best Free Websites Combined Index now available on Delicious!