Explore Technorati and learn how tags work with blog posts

This was an interesting exercise! As a cataloger I am interested in the organization of information so that it is retrievable. Technorati is certainly a search tool that offers searchability and more importantly findability to the millions of blogs that they track.

Tagging plays a key role in making the information retrievable. Like traditional subject access that catalogers have used for centuries, tags offer the concept of likeness, or collocation. Tags bring related information to the forefront by providing relevant access points.

The search tool itself offers the possibility of ranking the information it retrieves by offering the choice of authority for the articles "any ; little ; some ; a lot" and even sorts it by language preference.

While the format is different than traditional cataloging and the subject access is not in controlled vocabulary terms the basic concepts of cataloging are still behind the function of Technorati -- make the information relevant by providing searchable terms (tags), rank the information (via the authority rating) and make it retrievable.

Technorati and other search tools like it may be taking the place of traditional catalogers in libraries, but the basic functions of cataloging are at the heart of what makes Technorati so useful. Both cataloging and Technorati answer the questions: What is it? What is it about? How can I find it? Are there anymore like it? Long live Cataloging!!

I liked the several search options available. You can view the most popular, view those with a theme or even search at the specific tag level. The one thing I didn't like was new blogs with little chance to develop a following because of their newness weren't including in the basic search unless you changed the authority level from "some" to "any" authority. That is also a good thing though, because people who write frequently and well on a topic will get the expert level ranking and more people will add them to their favorites.

I did go back and tag all my posts! So I should be searchable for anyone looking for "any" authority on cataloging, Library 2.0 and the topics we have addressed in our Learning 2.0 experience!
Technorati
Library 2.0
tagging
cataloging
Libraries

Locating a few useful library related blogs

Finding other news feeds was very interesting -- I am tempted to subscribe to lots, but I am still leary of how many sites I can actually subscribe to and keep up with, so for now I did lots of browsing.

Which method of finding feeds did you find easiest to use?

• Definitely the icons, they were quicker. If you are at a site subscribing using the RSS feed icon really made it simple.

Which Search tool was easiest? More confusing?

• Blogline's Search tool: this tool was the easiest to use
• Feedster: this one was Changing, so it was not available to try
• Topix.net: I found it easy to navigate. I used the "All Sites" link to just browse the topics this was a browsable index by topic and I liked that feature.
• Syndic8.com: I found some interesting library sites that I may go back and subscribe too. This one was my least favorite I think because of layout, I can't quite pinpoint why I didn't like it as much.
• Technorati: this site seemed to provide the most information, arranged in a logical manner. Very thorough.

What other tools or ways did you find to locate newsfeeds?

• There are several sites that I check on frequently to see what has been updated. I simply went to these sites and copied the URLs.
• The DDC updates coming to me rather than me searching daily at the beginning of the month to see if the new month has been posted will really be a timesaver!