One fun and useful aspect of tagging is the ESP Game. I first saw this in a presentation at ACRL last spring. The librarian said he showed it in his library instruction classes as an example of the benefits of using controlled vocabulary. The team behind the ESP Game is attempting to label all the images on the web by making it fun for people to provide tags for them. Once you start playing it can be addictive.
I'm a little of two minds about the usefulness of tags in libraries. Allowing users to add tags to the catalog makes more sense to me in public libraries than academic ones, but maybe that's because I haven't seen a good application of them in an academic setting. I know there is this strong movement towards involving the user,and for the most part I'm okay with that, but it also seems like we could be dumbing things down. As an academic librarian, where learning is supposed to be part of the point, I have a hard time with that.
I've known about del.icio.us for a couple of years now, but haven't used it. Whenever I'd explore the site, all the bookmarks and tags seemed overwhelming without a purpose for my exploration. And whenever I was searching for web sites on a subject, it never occurred to me to check out del.icio.us. So this was kind of a "lightbulb" moment for me--next time I'm looking for subject resources, or researching something for myself, I'll go to del.icio.us.
I also never thought to create a del.icio.us account for my bookmarks--although I could have used one recently when my work computer was replaced. While most of my personal files were transferred just fine, my browser profile, including my bookmarks, was wiped out.
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