Grandi novità per CiteULike, il sito di social tagging creato da Richard Cameron e dedicato agli articoli ed alle monografie (N.d.R. termine bibliotecario per significare libri ;-) ) scientifici. Come forse sapete o avete notato seguendo le mie folksonoMY, nella colonna di destra di questo blog, sono un’utente affezionata di questo sito, sul quale archivio documenti relativi all’open access e agli archivi aperti e nel quale ho creato il Gruppo Open Archive (join! join!).
Molte nuove funzionalità, molto going social, molte conversazioni, per i singoli utenti e per i gruppi, molti tab, molto Facebook-style, qualche lievissima modifica al layout e un fantastico blog per ogni utente! Un estratto dalle news del sito:
Users – Your own CiteULike content is now all accessible through a series of “tabs“:
- Profile
- Library
- Watchlist
- Groups
- Blog
An overview of the functions available under each tab is given below.
Profile – Each CiteULike user now has a profile page. You can use this to put some information about who you are and what you do. We will be adding to the collaboration features of CiteULike in the future; you might want to fill out your profile to let other people know a bit about you. Your profile page displays a news mini-feed which gives you a potted history of your significant activity on the site.
Library – All of your library functions are available under the library tab. The JavaScript-based ‘Search My Library’ function has been retired (those of you who have very large libraries will know that it wasn’t working very well), and has been replaced with a more normal search box. We believe this is a great improvement; please let us know if you disagree. You can now post private articles to your library. See below for more details. It’s now possible to copy any article in your library to any of the groups which you are a member of (assuming that you are allowed to post articles to that group).
Blog – Every user now has a blog. You can create blog articles and specify whether other users can comment on them or not, and whether anonymous comments are allowed. The messages can have a limited amount of wiki-style markup applied to them. There’s help available on this markup from a link next to the editing box.
Groups – We have extended the group functions within CiteULike. Also, we’ve removed the group approval process – when you create a group, it is now useable immediately. Groups now have the following features:
- News mini-feed
- Privacy settings
- Group membership schemes
- A group library
- A message board
- Discussion forums
- Administration functions
- Invite a friend
News Mini-Feed – A group’s home page now displays a history of all the noteworthy group happenings. The following actions are displayed:
- Group creation
- Article posted to group library
- New discussion forum topic
- New comment posted to the message board
- User joined the group
- User left the group
- Invitation to join the group has been sent
- User declined invitation
- Non-member asked to join the group
- Non-member’s request to join the group was cancelled
- Non-member’s request to join the group was refused
Privacy settings – There are two different sorts of groups: public and private. Public groups can be seen by all CiteULike users; private groups are only visible to their members, or to non-members who have been invited to join them.
Membership schemes – A public group can be set up so that
- anyone can join, instantly
- would-be members have to apply to join
- membership is by invitation only.
Group Library – A group’s library is now separate from the libraries of its members (N.d.R. WOW!!!!!!). This change in response to numerous requests from CiteULike users. The group library functions like any other library: it is searchable, exportable, and can polled by RSS readers, and can be placed on watchlists.
Message Board – Each group has a message board which can be used to post messages to the group. These messages are displayed in reverse-time order, and, at present, messages for the previous 28 days are displayed. These messages can have wiki-style markup applied to them.
Discussion Forums – Each group can have discussion forums associated with it. These forums can be created by any group’s full or administrative members, and are designed to facilitate discussion on group-related topics amongst group users. It’s possible to set up each forum to allow anonymous posts, and posts from non-members. Forum messages can have wiki-style markup applied to them.
Invite a Friend – There is a new function to invite other CiteULike users to join a group. The function is available from the group’s home page. Any group member can invite any other CiteULike user to join their group. There is a separate function which allows you to invite non-CiteULike members to join – see below.
Da notare che il social tagging non è solo un mezzo per organizzare informazioni o dati per applicazioni tecnologicamente avanzate: nella Biblioteca in cui lavoro, alcune colleghe hanno creato il Gruppo Acquisition, dedicato alla raccolta e categorizzazione di item dedicati ad uno dei più classici temi della biblioteconomia :) Have a look and join!