What is arch.i.vi.us?

Arch.i.vi.us (or archivius) is a blog inspired by del.icio.us, the popular social bookmarking website. It is meant to make the archivist profession think differently about the ways in which technology can be used to make a difference in their work.

Social bookmarking is similar to the "Favorites" or "Bookmarks" menus that we find on our Web browsers. But social bookmarking takes advantage of people power and technology to search and provide information on a variety of topics.

The good old days: For the sake of remembering a good website that we come across, we bookmark it using our Web browser so that we can return to it a later time (without having to remember any long URL addresses). A model that worked fine.

Same thing for social bookmarking, except that when we bookmark and tag a website that we find interesting we are in fact sharing (through the del.icio.us servers) the said website with users who share similar interests as ours.

So, for example, say we are interested in "electronic records." As we browse the Web, we come across a very interesting Website. We decide to bookmark it. However, this time, rather than using our regular bookmark system, we use del.icio.us. So we bookmark the website: that is, we tag the website with a keyword (or, as they say in fancy library and information parlance, we append metadata) and then click OK. All done.

Now other users, who are browsing the Web and are using del.icio.us as well, can search delicious for "electronic records" and find the Web resource we found of interest. A small bond is formed. We shared a resource with other like-minded individuals. We both gain; we all gain.