Thing 13; or, you've got to be kidding me.

After an extended hiatus of a self-created two week Spring Break, I return to blog with a vengeance. Either I'm really excited about getting back into the swing of things, or I'm extraordinarily bored at work and want to provide some lackluster entertainment for Danielle (who is also bored to tears at work). You decide. Bring on the Thing! (that's what she said)

Ahem. Thing 13 leads the traveler of this pointless journey of 2.0 learning to the highly beloved del.icio.us social bookmarking. We're going to do this a little differently today. First, we're going to make assumptions about what they would want us to do, and then we're going to see what it is they actually want us to do. Sound good? Wonderful.

Assumptions
Well, I anticipate that it is School Library Learning 2.0's greatest desire to instruct us how to create a del.icio.us account. Not only that, but we should then explore the web and let the tagging rumpus start. Then, we'll take one of the blogs that we've been reading and tag it with a very distinct tag so we can all find it later and become great friends and have a gay ole time chatting about using del.icio.us in the future.

Bitter, cold reality
They want me to do what?! Oh, that's right. Nothing. First things first: a video tutorial. ENH--wrong answer. After I'm done, not watching this tutorial I'm to explore someone else's account. Well, all right. That's not so bad, but only because it would be helpful when I get pigeonholed into working in a school, as all the public library jobs will cease to exist once city budgeters get their way. So: SJLibraryLearning2. Now comes the hard part. Do you think you can handle it? I am only bravely venturing there because you expect so much from me and I wouldn't dream of letting you down in this great time of need. ::Holds breath::

Explore the site options and try clicking on a bookmark that has also been bookmarked by a lot of other users. Can you see the comments they added about this bookmark or the tags they used to catgorize this reference?

OMGOMGOMGOMG I don't know if I can do it. Rather, I don't know if I want to do it. Next! ... So the last bulleted instruction does NOT include creating a del.icio.us account. I've created an avatar, which will most certainly not help me in the library field, but it's only optional to create a del.icio.us account? What the? No, the last instruction is a touchy-feely sobfest about how this tool can be useful in libraries. Ready for it? Here I go:

The one website that would actually be beneficial to librarians, they only made it optional to create an account. This is utter nonsense. Yes, I can see the potential of this for research assistance! Can't you? Clearly not, otherwise there would be a fifth instruction to create one. But I digress.

I get weekly updates from the Librarian's Internet Index with a slew of websites that might be helpful. Without del.icio.us I would never be able to access those in the rare case someone comes to the reference desk looking for information on endangered frogs. Since del.icio.us does exist, I can help that patron in the .0001% chance they come to me. Also, instead of making pathfinders no one uses, librarians can update their library's del.icio.us account. It brings the information to the patron's domain instead of waiting for the patron to come to us. Plus, we can study the language and words people use to tag items and then apply it to materials in the library to aid findability.

Reasons why this Thing didn't waste all of my time
Libraries that del.icio.us
The aforementioned SJLibraryLearning2