Use of social bookmarking

I’m fairly new to social bookmarking, having only commenced using it during my Student Placement for my degree.  I’m currently using it at it’s most primitive form, i.e just as a cloud based bookmark bar, although I have used the sharing function with the librarian.

I think my use is similar to that of most people’s use of most technology.  They use it as a “quick and dirty” tool and seldom use all the functionality.  This assignment has prompted me to thinking of it in a broader sense and to exploit it more widely, particularly as I start working as a reference librarian.  I need to exploit the “social” part not just the “bookmarking” part. 

Originally our school used Delicious, but moved to Diigo as a result of the fact that it provided the following additional features that Delicious didn’t

“What can you do with Diigo that you cannot with Delicious?

Bookmark

• – save bookmarks as private by default (optional)
• – organize your bookmarks as a list and shown as a slide
• – set up groups to pool resources and curate content
• – automatically bookmark your twitter favorites
• – keep a full-text copy of your bookmarks (Premium features)
• – full-text search of your bookmarks (Premium features)
• – save notes and images, in addition to bookmarks

Annotation

• – use highlights and sticky notes as you read – do not just bookmark
• – capture a portion of the screen and annotate on the screenshot” (Diigo, 2013)

At present we are busy preparing the Grade 11 IB students to write their extended essay.  Diigo is a useful tool to teach them and to use while conducting reference interviews for their specific essay, and also to create an area where information on common problems such as citation, accessing databases and referencing can be accumulated.