Aquabrowser updates

I just discovered that Aquabrowser, one of our catalogs, has been adding web 2.0 functionality. They already had the ability to add RSS feeds in the catalog although BCPL has not turned that feature on yet.

1) Now  the company has added something they call “My Discoveries” which offers:

• Lists that users can make for themselves or make public to help others
• Tagging, Reviewing and Scoring on any item
• Personal profiles

AquaBrowser connects people and knowledge by offering user tagging and user reviews on any item in your collection. This kind of social searching perfectly combines human intelligence with search algorithms to perform information retrieval. User tags and reviews from the local library users will only add to the ability of community libraries to be tailored for the people they are intended, because those very people will be giving their input to almost every dynamic of the library catalog.

2) AquaBrowser now allows all the item records in a library’s collection to be indexed and found by any internet search engine, as if to create a separate web page for every title in the library’s collection. This means any item in the entire collection can be found as a search result when performing a regular web search, driving traffic to the library website and allowing anyone to discover its community valuable information. The more accessible a library is online, the more the community uses and benefits from it. This information can be found in the Archive section of MediaLab’s website.

Private and public bookmarks

Bookmarks saved with your buttons are public by default, but imported bookmarks are private by default. If you see “not shared” next to a bookmark, that means it is a private bookmark and only you can see it. Note: if you’re logged out, you won’t be able to see your private bookmarks either.

To change a private bookmark to public (so that everyone else can see it), click the “share” link next to it.

To change a public bookmark to private, first enable private saving in your settings. Then edit your bookmark, check the do not share box, and save it. While saving a new bookmark, you can also check the do not share box to make that bookmark private.

Notes in Social Bookmarking on Del.icio.us

I learned that you can add notes to your bookmark by highlighting some text from the web page you’re bookmarking. That would be useful for writing a paper, or memo, or just general research.