The Web4Lib email list has a lot of interesting things with the web, libraries, technologies, and such. Some of it is over my head because some of the people are way better programmers than I. Other topics mentioned are interesting things that get me thinking in a different direction and also might be possible for me to do.

One of these things that I don't think I can do currently with my Webopac, but I find interesting none the less, is linking to del.icio.us from the webopac.

Del.icio.us is a social tagging/bookmarking site to store and share online bookmarks that you can access from any computer anywhere. You can use tags to organize and remember your bookmarks, similar to organizing them in folders but more flexible. For more information about del.icio.us and what it can do check out, about del.icio.us.

There are some definite taggers out there or else this site and others like it wouldn't be growing as fast they are. I understand the concept of social bookmarking and tagging in the webopac. Whether I think this phenomenon is technologically the next best thing since slice bread or whether it goes becomes as popular as betamax is up for argument from the users and the critics.

Still it is an interesting way to expand and stretch the library webopac. What I am most curious about is what the outright benefits are to the average (not super techie) library patron of tagging or using something like del.icio.us in the webopac. Are patrons, regular average every day patrons, ready and wanting to do this? Or is social bookmarking and tagging in the webopac kind of like a "Field of Dreams" project, where people laugh at you for building a ballpark in your cornfield but when all is said and done they line up for miles to see/use it.

Read/Write Web has an interesting look at the estimated number of users that sites like del.icio.us might have. Based on the statistics at the time of the del.icio.us acquisition (by Yahoo) in December 2005, and its subsequent growth, the authors estimate del.icio.us has approximately 500,000 users. Impressive, but when you look at the total number of library users in a state, it makes you wonder if adding social bookmarking to the webopac is more bleeding edge than cutting edge for now.

I don't think we should squash the idea of tagging in webopacs right now. We wouldn't get anywhere in libraries or society if we killed every new emerging technology before it got out of the box. But is it an automatic and obvious benefit to our users or is something that still has some time to go before our users are thinking of wanting it?