When you add a bookmark to Firefox, you can add one or more tags to the bookmark. You can find bookmarks by their tag using the bookmark manager, which Firefox 3 has unhelpfully renamed the Library, or you can just type one or more comma-separated tags into the address bar.

Foxmarks is a Firefox add-on which synchronizes your bookmarks, including their tags, between multiple computers.  To do this, there's a Foxmarks server which holds all your bookmarks, but it's normally invisible — Foxmarks isn't intended to be a web application of that sort.  However, the Foxmarks server has access to all of the tags on all of the bookmarks of all Foxmarks' users.

In its latest release, Foxmarks has added the ability to suggest tags when you bookmark a page.  The feature is described here, where they say:

So how does it work? As you may know, Foxmarks manages over half a billion bookmarks every day. We’re now putting this data to work for you by analyzing this giant collection of information to determine the best tags for your bookmark. As always, we are careful to protect your privacy and our algorithms will never expose any personally identifying information.

Which isn't very detailed.  I presume it works by suggesting the most common tags for a given page.  Ensuring privacy is an interesting issue, and not an easy one.  I guess Foxmarks doesn't show tags that don't occur (for the page in question) a certain minimum number of pages.

One of the books I'm reading at the moment is Blown to Bits:  Your Life, Liberty, and Happiness after the Digital Explosion, by Abelson, Ledeen and Lewis.  It's an interesting book, and I'll have more to say about it when I'm done.  On page 34, they talk about how Governor Weld's medical data was extracted from blinded data using a combination of gender, zip code and birth date.  I doubt people tag their bookmarks with their birth date, but zip code is a possibility.  Anyway, it shows how hard it is to really blind data.

I basically don't believe in a bright line dividing controlled vocabularies (as in a library catalog) from uncontrolled vocabularies (such as tags and other folksonomies).  The suggested tags feature in Foxmarks is an interesting experiment in blurring the boundary further, with what amounts to a semi-controlled vocabulary.

One way public libraries measure themselves is by how much they give away: how many books loaned, how many people helped, how many talks attended.  I think this is such a good idea that it should apply to library web sites as well.

Tim Spalding, Thing One at LibraryThing, recently announced on his blog that their Common Knowledge program had just reached one million data items.  What makes this particularly neat is that all this information is freely available via their API as well as on web pages.

One thing that Tim particularly drew attention to was their data on series.  Elizabeth Bear is clearly courting some sort of bibliographic damnation, since her Promethean Age series switches between "and" and "&":  Blood and Iron; Whiskey & Water; Ink and Steel; Hell and Earth.  This is further complicated by the fact that Ink and Steel and Hell and Earth form a series within the series.  Bear describes them as, "the two halves of a really long novel, which is collectively known as The Stratford Man" (ibid.).  LibraryThing gets this right, since it doesn't limit the amount of series information that users can contribute.  You can get the same information from the API.

Justin Thorp has been commenting on the growth of APIs, what he calls "the decline of the web site", for some time, such as here:

Because of all the great Web platforms and APIs that are being made available, the Web is no longer being constrained by the notion of a Web page. For example, there are many people like Michael Arrington who are using Web applications like Twitter with out ever actually going to the Twitter Web site.

Justin points out that this effectively asks the question, "you mean you want me to encourage people to not use my Web site?", to which his (and my) answer is, "Yep".

And Karen Coombs discusses alternative APIs, concluding with:

Libraries also need to think about building an OpenSearch interface to their collections.

I'd like my local library to discourage use of their web site by giving away information on which books are available (as opposed to out, etc.).  I'd like an API.

Over at P'unk Avenue Window, Geoff DiMasi is thinking about library web sites.   I believe that people's expectations for a library web site (or any web site) are set by the best web sites they encounter . Here's what Geoff has to say:

I envision a library website that has an Ebay reputation system, a Digg voting component, a room reservation system, a Google Books repository, a WorldCat list and notes feature, Amazon reviews and Facebook profiles.

I believe that whether you're thinking about layout and design, navigation and ease of use, or features and functions, when people come to your web site they'll instinctively compare your site to the best sites they've seen.  Geoff wants the library web site to be as good as Ebay, Digg, Google Books, WorldCat, Amazon and Facebook combined.

The comments on Geoff's post are also very interesting. Laura from the Free Library of Philadelphia has this to say:

Libraries have long developed their own ways of doing things that work well for Librarians but when exposed to the larger culture are quite limited. The Web has only accelerated that process.

One of "their own ways of doing things" on library web sites that drives me nutty is jargon. If I'm looking for something, should I look in a "catalog" or a "database"?  The Free Library of Philadelphia has made a good start, dividing its front page into three area for Find, Explore and Ask.  I noticed this same layout recently at Harvard College Libraries, whose choice of terms is "Research", "Request Forms", "Instruction Resources" and "General Info".  This is pretty good but not as good as FLP's.  "Request Forms" in particular has three different meanings:  "request a form", "forms for requests" and "a request is forming".  But FLP still requires the user to be able to predict in advance whether what they want will be found in the catalog or the databases. At least they make the dilemma obvious.

LibraryThing allows users to organize lists of books. One of the problems they have to solve is to distinguish different authors with the same name.  Over at Libology, Rick Mason says:

I like that LibraryThing has found a simple, elegant solution that matches what people think and say when distinguishing between two authors with the same name.

LibraryThing's proposed solution is to identify both Steve Martins as "Steve Martin", and let users identify the correct author of a book by looking at the other books each Steve has written.  This explanation might sound silly, but it's just what IMDB does with, for example, the nine different Paul Newmans.  And as Rick says, it has the advantage that it matches what people think and say.  That's what makes an effective web site.

This is definitely not a review of The Year's Best SF 13, edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer, a wonderful collection of amazing short stories.  (You can follow the link for a list of the stories.)  Here's a small taste of Bruce Sterling's story, "The Lustration":

"I thought we had an understanding," said the Chief of Police, who was unhappy at the developments.

"You're upset because I killed termites?  Policeman hate termites."

"You're supposed to repair anomalies.  You're not supposed to create anomalies."

"I didn't 'create' anything," he said.  "I simply revealed what was already there.  I burned some wood — rotting wood is an anomaly.  I killed some pests — pests are an anomaly.  The metal can all be accounted for.  So where is the anomaly?"

"Your work is disturbing the people."

"The people are not disturbed. The people think it's all in fun. It's the people who worry about 'the people being disturbed' — those are the people who are being disturbed."

So, I'm thinking of making that my new motto: "I'm not disturbing the people; I'm disturbing the people who worry about the people being disturbed."  Perfect!

Things are changing fast!

Here's a post from Tame The Web with a short video that shows just how fast: Right Here, Right Now: Ready for the Unexpected/Future.  You're probably aware of much of this material, but it's very illuminating to see it all in a five-minute video.  The things that are changing fast aren't just gadgets — they're the tools that people use, so people are changing, too.  And kids are changing faster than adults.  Here's a quick check: Does your phone have a keyboard?  All three of my kids have phones with keyboards.

Over at The Unquiet Librarian, Buffy Hamilton posts her presentation from the Georgia Council of Teachers of English 2009 Annual Conference: "YA Lit 2.0: How YA Authors and Publishers Are Using Web 2.0 Tools to Reach Teen Readers".  In the supporting material on her blog, Hamilton gives a dozen or more YA authors who use Twitter or Facebook.  I've been struck by how fast Facebook has been expanding into the general population over the past six months, including my colleagues from a certain religious organization playing Mafia on Facebook.  Here's another quick example of how fast things are changing: Hamilton uses four Web 2.0 tools in a single post: WordPress, SlideShare, WikiSpaces and Kwout.

It makes sense that libraries should stay well behind the crumbling edge of web startups, but if you're not moving ahead at the same speed as the crumbling edge, you're falling behind, and if you're not moving ahead at the same speed as your patrons, you're falling behind.

One of my New Year's resolutions is to be more constructive, specifically about libraries and the web.  But not yet, God.  Recently, I noticed that some of the entries in our local library network catalog included a link to more information about the author.

I'm sorry that I can't let this pass, but the link is labeled "Contributor biographical information".  If you were looking at this page and wanted more information about John Scalzi, would you click on "Contributor biographical information" or "Scalzi, John, 1969-"?  Don't use jargon!  Scalzi, by the way, has been given a bibliographic distinction befitting his stature as a popular author: some of his books are entered under "Scalzi, John" and some under "Scalzi, John, 1969-".

So the user interface could be better, but there are other shortcomings.  The link pulls information from the Library of Congress, which uses information provided by the book's publisher.  By the publisher of that book.  Now Scalzi has a blog which happens to be wildly popular, as author blogs go.  Some of Scalzi's books have no "contributor biographical information" at all, some have one which mentions the blog, and some have one which does not.  I didn't go through every book, but the ones I checked didn't mention Scalzi's Twitter account, or his forum.

I also checked Elizabeth Bear (because I'm a Bear fanboy), and most of the entries don't have links, and the ones that do don't mention her web site, her blog on Live Journal or her Twitter account.

The good news is that the catalog is adding new features and trying new things. This is a good thing, and if I had any pull with the folks who run the catalog, I'd do what I could to encourage it.  It would be great if the catalog had a blog where these things were announced and where people could offer comments (and encouragement!).

I don't want the better to be the enemy of the good, but I also don't want the good to be the enemy of the better, either.  To be really useful to people who want more information about their favorite author, the catalog needs links to Wikipedia, to blogs, RSS feeds,, Twitter, Facebook and on and on.  The best thing to follow a good first step is another step.  And another step.  And another step!  FASTER!

The Adventures of Johnny Bunko:  the last career guide you'll ever need, by Daniel H. Pink, probably isn't the last career guide you'll ever need.  On the other hand, it's an excellent start.

It's a short graphic novel with six simple lessons for thinking clearly about your career.  Inevitably, the book has a website, JohnnyBunko.com, which will tell you the six lessons, but it strains fair use to tell you even one here (that would be more than 16%!), so you'll have to visit the site.

The six lessons, and the book as a whole, work well to clear away the FUD from career planning.  Being scared or confused isn't a very effective place to be to make good decisions, so just thinking clearly is a great first step.

The graphics are drawn by Ron Ten Pas in the style of a manga.  The book is fun, engaging and easy to read.  I guess the book is really directed at people between a third and a half my age, and you know what they say, "the young are a foreign country".  So I'm in no position to offer a guarantee, but I do recommend the book.