I'm starting to put this into HTML. Please please still feel free to make changes. But, if you change something that's this color, change the color to something else. If you have questions, please let me know. Thanks.
Laurie
1 Introducing PennTags
1.1 About PennTags?
1.2 Save
1.3 Tag
1.4 Share
1.5 Getting Started
2 Adding to PennTags
2.1 Adding from Library Resources
2.2 Non-Library Resources
2.3 Non-Web Resources
2.4 Understanding the Posting Page
3 Search, Navigate & Discover
3.1 Search
3.2 Follow Tags and Owners
3.3 Using the Tagcloud
3.4 Navigating by URL's
3.5 PennTags in Franklin
4 Tools
4.1 Basic Tools
4.2 Action Tools
4.3 RSS Feeds
5. Projects & Project Tools
5.1 Project Basics
5.2 Organizing Projects
5.2 Collaborating on Projects
6 Privacy, Copyright, and Policies
6.1 Privacy
6.2 Copyright
6.3 Policies and FAQ's
1 Introducing PennTags
1.1 About PennTags?
PennTags is a social bookmarking tool for locating, organizing, and sharing your favorite online resources. Members of the Penn Community can collect and maintain URLs, links to journal articles, and records in Franklin, our online catalog and VCat, our online video catalog. Once these resources are compiled, you can organize them by assigning tags (free-text keywords) and/or by grouping them into projects, according to your specific preferences. PennTags can also be used collaboratively, because it acts as a repository of the varied interests and academic pursuits of the Penn community, and can help you find topics and users related to your own favorite online resources.
How is PennTags different from my personal bookmarks?
Think of PennTags as an enhanced version of your bookmarks but with the following differences:
PennTags is available to you from any computer, unlike personal bookmarks on your computer.
PennTags allows you to add tags to your posts, helping you organize and find posts later.
PennTags is a social discovery system; you can see what others are posting and what tags they are using.
You can sort items of interest by tag, project or user, unlike bookmarks which can only be found by folder name.
You can create an RSS feed for tags in PennTags, so anytime that tag is used, you will be notified in your RSS feed reader.
PennTags was developed by librarians at the University of Pennsylvania. We welcome your feedback! Please contact us at penntags@pobox.upenn.edu.
Links to Save, to Tag, Share/Find, Get Started
1.2 Save -- books, articles, web pages, journals
Save your favorite webpages, books, journal articles and more in one place and access them from any computer. (Use PennTags tools to create project - maybe leave all this out for now)
Books from Franklin: screenshot of franklin
Journal Articles from PennText menu: screenshot of Add to from Penntext
Websites: screenshot of website with bookmarklet
Library Resources: VCAT & ERED screenshots
1.3 Tag -- your favorites with words that make sense to you
Use tags to describe your PennTags content. Tags are descriptive words that you choose, and they can help you locate and organize your PennTags in ways that make sense to you.
Screenshot of the posting page with 4 tags assigned
Bring together resources for a research paper, a class, or a group project
(screenshot of that post in 4 different useful lists)
link to the posting page section of Adding to Ptags and tagging tips
1.4 Share -- following tags, getting to the opac stuff, etc
Discover new and relevant material in PennTags by clicking on tags of interest to you. You can search for tags by using the search box or follow tags in the tagcloud on tags.library.upenn.edu. Easily share your PennTags content with your colleagues and classmates. Every page on PennTags has its own URL, simply send colleagues a link to one of your PennTags pages.
screenshot of a penntags screen with highlights around the links to other pages
screenshot of penntags content in Franklin
link to navigating/searching
1.5 Getting Started
You can tag many library-provided resources (e.g., catalog records, article citations, article search engines) simply by clicking the "Add to PennTags" icon from the resource itself, but tagging other webpages requires a bookmarklet. The bookmarklet is a link you add to your browser's Bookmarks section/toolbar. Clicking on it lets you post your item to PennTags.
Follow the directions below, according to which browser you use.
Firefox:
Drag this link to your bookmarks toolbar:
Add to Penntags (button)
(screenshot of the link being dragged to the toolbar)
Hint: If you don't see the bookmarks toolbar, click here for instructionl
Microsoft Internet Explorer:
Right click on the link below and click "Add to Favorites".
Add to Penntags (button)
screenshot of the context menu.
Safari: Hold down the CTRL key and click on the link below and click "add link to bookmarks...".
Add to Penntags (button)
screenshot of the context menu.
2) Adding to PennTags
2.1 Adding from Library Resources
Franklin - Library Catalog
You can add any individual item in Franklin by clicking on the Add to PennTags link at the bottom of the screen. However, only individual records can be added to PennTags. Search results can not be tagged at this time.
Screen shot
VCat- Video Catalog
Go directly to VCat (link: http://www.library.upenn.edu/catalogs/vcat/).
Add any item from its record in VCat by clicking on the Add to PennTags link at the bottom of the record screen.
Screen shot
Journal Articles
When you have a journal article or journal citation that you want to add to PennTags there are a couple of options available to you.
If you are viewing an electronic journal article that you want to add to PennTags see if there is a DOI for the article. A DOI is a stable link for that journal article, they look like this 10.1016/S0140-6736(06)68745-X and are usually found at the top of the article. If a DOI is present then use the bookmarklet (link to getting started section) to get to the posting page. On the posting page you will need to erase the URL that is there and paste in the DOI as it appears on the article page. Once you have done that you can add your post to PennTags as you usually do. If there is no DOI you need to use the method explained below, you should not add the URL of the journal article as these URLs are usually temporary and stop working a short time after you visit the page.
If there is no DOI or you have a journal citation that you want to add, you will need to use the "Already Have a Citation, Try PennText " link(a screenshot of this might be nice) on the library's homepage www.library.upenn.edu
Enter your citation, and click the Add to PennTags link from the resulting PennText menu.
Note that by doing this, you are adding the PennText menu for your article--not the article itself--to PennTags. That way you'll be able to find online and/or print copies of your article whenever you need it.
Screen shot
Adding articles from databases like MEDLINE or EBSCO MegaFile
Article search engines don't always provide stable URLs, so we can't add these URLs to PennTags. However, using PennText works around this problem. So, when searching an article search engine like MEDLINE or EBSCO MegaFILE, use the PennText button (image of penntext button here) to open the PennText menu and then click the Add to PennTags link at the bottom of the screen.
Screen shot
Working with JSTOR, LexisNexis and Factiva
Because these article search engines offer the full-text of every article they index, they don't include a PennText button. To work around this issue, take note of the following options.
JSTOR (on campus) -- You can add any JSTOR article just as you would add a normal webpage. From the article screen, click the bookmarklet. Unfortunately, the link you create will only work from on campus, though we are working to improve this situation.
LexisNexis and Factiva -- Unfortunately, these article search engines make it impossible for us to create steady links into their resources. We wish they would correct this problem; sadly, there is no way to add an article to PennTags from within these search engines. You can work around this by noting the citations you want to add and then using the "Already Have a Citation? Try PennText" link from the library homepage. Essentially, you're starting from scratch with a citation for an article (see Journal Articles(make this a link) for how to do this) .
Screen shot
2.2 Non-Library Resources
You can add anything from the web with the PennTags bookmarklet. When you are on the page you want to add, click on the bookmarklet. To install the bookmaklet, see the Getting Started page.
Screen shot
2.3 Non-Web Resources
Sometimes it is difficult or impossible to begin with a URL for your resource. In that case, you can also create a bookmark from scratch. From any PennTags page just click on the "Add a Post" link in the Toolbox in the left hand sidebar.
Screen shot
2.4 Posting Page
Whatever method you use to add posts to PennTags you will always be taken to the posting page to complete your post. If you have not logged into PennTags you will be asked to login with your Pennkey and Password. You will then be able to add tags and notes to your post. Below is a screenshot of the Posting Page with the features described:-
Screen shot
Owner
The owner field will automatically show your Pennkey name, this cannot be edited.
Title
Unless you are creating a post from scratch, the title field will always be populated by the title of the webpage, article, or book. The title that will appear is the title that PennTags has imported from the resource you are posting. This field is editable so that you can change the title to be more descriptive if you need to.
URL
This is the web address of the resource you are posting. Unless you are posting from scratch this field will automatically be filled with the URL that PennTags imports from the web for the resource. This field is editable so you can change the URL to accomodate DOI's (link to DOI section) or to repair broken links.
Tags
In this box enter tags for your resource. Tags are descriptive words and you can enter as many as you like to describe your resource. Separate tags with spaces and if you are using multi-word tags join the words with an underscore eg. instead of typing in New York type in New_York. For more help on tags visit tagging tips section (link to tagging tips)
Most recent & Most Used
To add any of these as tags to your current post just click on the tag.
Privacy
By default all posts added to PennTags are viewable on the web by anyone in the world. If you want to keep your posts so that only you can view them select the "make private option". See the privacy policy for more information
I'm Done
At this point you can choose to add your post to PennTags by clicking "I'm Done Add to Penntags" or you can continue to add more information to your post using the features described below
Notes
Use this field to add notes about your post. You can use notes to explain, describe or add further information to your post.
You can use the tools at the bottom of the notes box to format your notes.
Add to Project
Use the pulldown menu to select one of your projects into which you want to add the post. This list includes all projects that you have already created. If you would like to add your post to a new project, you should add the post to PennTags without a specific project and create the project later in Penntags and add the post as described in the Project section
Copyright
The content you create is yours. Please read the copyright policies for more information on copyright.Add & Add and go to PT
When you are finished with your post you have two options, you can just click on the Add button and your post will be added to PennTags, if you want to go to PennTags to view your post and work in PennTags then click the Add & Go To PennTags option.
3 Search, Navigate & Discover
3.1 Search:-
The searchbox appears at the top of the left hand sidebar in all PennTags pages. By default the search will search across all tags, post titles and post owners. If you want to be more targeted you can search in each of those fields individually by using the pull down menu next to the search box. When your search results are returned your search terms will be highlighted in each hit.
3.2 Follow Tags and Owners:-
Follow a tag - Imagine that you are interested in XML. Seeing what other people are posting on PennTags using the tag XML will help you discover new and relevant posts. You can simply click on a tag of interest at the bottom of a post to get to a list of posts with a specific tag. Alternatively you can use the "View all tags" option in the left hand sidebar or the tagcloud (link to explanation below) to identify tags of interest and click through to the list of posts containing that tag.
Follow an owner - When browsing PennTags, you'll likely find other owners posting similar resources to your own. To follow an owner, simply click on his or her name at the bottom of a post or use the "Owners on this page" (link to explanation below) or "View all owners" (link to explanation below) options on any PennTags page.
Sometimes at the bottom of a post you will also see an "and x other people" link (where x is a number). This means that more than one person has added that same item to PennTags. Following this link is a good way to identify additional owners who may have posts in your areas of interest.
View All options :-
On every PennTags page there is an option in the left hand sidebar to view all tags and owners. Once you have found a tag of interest in the list clicking on it will take you to a page containing ALL posts in Penntags with that tag. The same is true for owners, clicking on a particular owner in the list will take you to ALL posts in PennTags by that owner.
On this page options:- The following lists appear on every PennTags page (is this true??) in the lefthand sidebar.
"Owners on this page" - A list of post owners on the current page in alphabetical order. Clicking on an owners name will take you to a list of ALL posts in PennTags by that owner.
"Tags on this page" - This is a list of all the tags in use on the current page. Next to each tag in the list is the number of posts that contain that tag and the term(s) associated with your current page. Clicking on a tag in the list will take you to the intersection of that tag and the terms associated with the current page. To illustrate this concept more clearly (below are some examples.)
3.3 Using the Tagcloud
Tagclouds appear on different pages in PennTags. A tagcloud is a visual representation of commonly used tags with those tags that are used more frequently appearing in larger and bolder fonts than those used less frequently. (Screenshot needed)
The tagcloud at http://tags.library.upenn.edu represents the most commonly used tags in Penntags. Clicking on a tag in the tagcloud will take you to ALL posts in Penntags with that tag.
Individual tagclouds also appear on each owners page ie at tags.library.upenn.edu/pennkey These tagclouds represent the tags used by that owner. Clicking on a tag in that tagcloud will take you to all posts by that owner with that tag.
3.4 Navigating by URL's
The URL of each PennTags page is key to understanding how PennTags is organized.
To view all posts containing a specific tag, the URL will be http://tags.library.upenn.edu/tag/tag_name.
e.g., http://tags.library.upenn.edu/tag/women
To view all posts containing more than one tag, the URL will be http://tags.library.upenn.edu/tag/1st_tag_name+2nd_tag_name.
e.g., http://tags.library.upenn.edu/tag/women+american
To view all posts by one owner, the URL will be http://tags.library.upenn.edu/owner_username.
e.g., http://tags.library.upenn.edu/jarson
To view all posts by a particular owner containing a specific tag, the URL will be http://tags.library.upenn.edu/owner_username/tag_name.
e.g., http://tags.library.upenn.edu/jarson/women
3.5 PennTags in Franklin
Whenever someone posts a Franklin record to PennTags (link to that section in the help) information about that post appears in Franklin (screenshot). You can follow the owner of that post or any of the tags he/she has used by clicking on them in the Franklin record. This is a great way to discover new materials, if someone is reading something that you are interested in, viewing that person's PennTags posts may help you discover other relevant reading materials.
4. Tools
4.1 Basic Tools
4.2 Action Tools
4.3 RSS Feeds
4.1 Basic Tools
Login
Some PennTags functions will require you to log in, and you may find you prefer to log in every time you use PennTags as a default. To do so, type your valid Pennkey and password into the login boxes in the upper right-hand of the entry screen. You will also be prompted to login when you make a new post, if you are not already logged in. If you have trouble logging in, please contact library@pobox.upenn.edu
Edit
Next to each of your own posts in PennTags you will see an Edit icon (picture)? (If you don't see those icons next to a post, you are either not logged in, or that you don't own the post. You can loging in the upper right corner of the screen.) Once you've added a post to PennTags, you may want to change the tags you assigned or update the description you wrote. If you've just added the post, it will likely be near the top of the list of recently added posts on the main PennTags page. Otherwise, you'll want to go to your tag space on PennTags (i.e., http://tags.library.upenn.edu/yourPennKey). Click on the Edit icon for the post you want to change. The posting box will open. Make your changes. Submit by clicking the Add to PennTags button at the bottom of the screen. To view the changes you made, refresh the screen (your PennTags tag space or the general PennTags page). The edited post will move to the top of the list.
Delete
Next to each of your own posts in PennTags you will see a Delete icon (picture). (If you don't see those icons next to a post, you are either not logged in, or that you don't own the post. You can loging in the upper right corner of the screen.) If you wish to permanently delete one of your posts from PennTags click on the delete button. This will delete the post from all of PennTags, including any project where it may exist. You will need to go through the posting process to re-add this item if you choose to do so at a later date.
Copy
Next to each post in PennTags you will see a Copy icon (picture). To copy, the posting box will pop open. The existing tags are imported automatically, but feel free to change them to make them more meaningful for you. Submit the post by clicking on the Add to PennTags button at the bottom of the posting box. You now own the post, too. (Note that doing this doesn't alter the other person's post in any way.) You may also Copy your own posts in the same way.
Add to project
Before you can add posts to a project, you need to have created the project you want to add to (see below). You can add individual posts to a project by scrolling over the "Add to Project" icon (picture) to the right of each post. Select the title of the project to which you would like add the post.
4.2 Action tools
The action tools are designed to allow users to process multiple posts at a time. By turning on the action tools, you can select all or some of the posts on a given page and copy them, or add them to a project. The posts will automatically be added without
Manage tags
Needs to be described when we see it.
4.3 Rss feeds
What are RSS feeds?
RSS feeds help you stay up to date with new content added to websites. By subscribing to an RSS feed from a website, you will be alerted via your RSS feedreader or aggregator as soon as any new content is added to that site. To subscribe to an RSS feed you need a feed reader, a piece of software that checks RSS feeds and alerts you to any new content. For information about getting a feed reader and to learn more about RSS and how to subscribe, visit http://gethelp.library.upenn.edu/guides/engineering/alerts/whatisrss.html.
What kind of RSS feeds can I get from PennTags?
PennTags RSS feeds notify you when new posts have been added to the page you are monitoring. There are different feed options available. You can subscribe to a general PennTags feed that will notify you whenever a post is added. You can also subscribe to more focused feeds that will notify you of new posts containing a specific tag or tags, of posts by a particular person, or of posts by a particular person using a specific tag or combination of tags.
How can I get the RSS feeds I want?
To make sure you are correctly subscribing to the feeds you want, go to the page in PennTags with the posts that you want to follow. From there, click on the RSS icon (can we put the icon here?) to get the RSS feed URL. Copy the URL and add it to your RSS feed reader. For instance, if you want to be notified every time a new post with the tag video_games is added to PennTags, go to http://tags.library.upenn.edu/tag/video_games and click on the RSS icon that appears on that page. Copy the URL and add it to your feed reader. To learn more about navigating PennTags and finding posts containing specific tags or written by specific people, see "Navigating PennTags".
labs.library = toolbar/I'm confused here--we have the 'getting started' info above. Should this be deleted or re-directed?
5. Projects & Project Tools
5.1 Project Basics
5.2 Organizing Projects
5.2 Collaborating on Projects
5.1 Project Basics
What are projects?
A project is an organized collection of posts. By gathering posts together in a project, you can create lists, annotated bibliographies, and documents around a topic. You can also invite collaborators to work with you on projects as described below.
Projects can be used to group a collection of posts around a topic.
A project is an organized collection of posts. By organizing posts as a project/by collecting posts/gathering posts, the project owner(s)can structure posts in ways meaningful to you.
Making Projects
Before bringing posts together in a project, you need to create a new project. To create a project, click on "Make a New Project" in the PennTags Toolbox on any PennTags page. Here you will assign a title to your project. You can also write a description and tags for your project. (mini screen-shot)
Adding Posts to Projects
Before you can add posts to a project, you must have created the project (See above). You can add individual posts to a project at the time of posting by selecting a project from the dropdown in the posting form, or later, by scrolling over the (folder picture) link to the right of each post. You can also add multiple posts to a project at the same time by using the Action Tools(link)
Remove Posts from Projects
To remove a post from a project, navigate to the project page for that project (you can click on the link to the project from your tagspace). There, you can click the "remove from project" link attached to the post. This does not delete the post, it simply removes it from the project.
delete
Each project appears as an individual post in your tagspace, so by deleting that title post (the title post has a folder icon next to it), you will delete the whole project. You do not delete the posts within the project when you do that, however but they are no longer associated with the project.
5.2 Organize Projects
sort
add subheads
5.2 Collaborating with Projects
remove collaborators
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Clickthrough Text:
Material you post to PennTags can be viewed by anyone on the web unless you mark it private.
PennTags is a tool for students, staff, and faculty at the University of Pennsylvania, and is intended to support research, teaching, learning, and scholarly communication. However please consider privacy when you decide what to post and whether to make it private. The links and annotations that you post to PennTags are publicly associated with your pennkey username, which can be traced to your full name. By default, your posts are accessible to anyone on the Internet. This includes your friends, family, professors, potential employers, and strangers. If you want to make your posts private so that only you can see them, select the option “Make Private” when you add or edit your posts. Alternately, you may create a project, or collection of posts, mark the project as private, and invite selected Penn users to share in the project so that only they may see your private posts.
Use of PennTags is governed by the Library’s Privacy Policy and content is subject to the University’s Policy on Appropriate Use of Electronic Resources , policies in Handbook for Faculty and Academic Administrators , the Penn Book , and the Code of Student Conduct
See PennTags Help Pages for more information.
(checkbox)I have read the above statement, understand the rights and policies, and would like to continue
adding a post to Penntags
(checkbox)I would like to leave PennTags immediately without adding a post
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6 Privacy, Copyright, and Policies
6.1 Privacy
6.2 Copyright
6.3 Policies and FAQ's
6 Privacy, Copyright, and Policies
6.1 Privacy
The links and annotations that you post to PennTags are publicly associated with your pennkey username, which can be traced to your full name. Please consider privacy when you decide what to post and whether to make it private. By default, your posts are accessible to anyone on the Internet. This includes your friends, family, professors, potential employers, and strangers. Unless you make them private, PennTags posts will appear in search engine results, and may be used in library publications.
What are private posts?
If you would like to make some of your posts visible only to a select group of Penn users, you can add add them to a private project. To do this, create a project (link to project help) and invite your collaborators, at least at the viewer level (link to collaboration help). Once you have identified the project and the collaborators, add posts to the project and mark them private. These posts will only be visible to project collaborators when they have logged into PennTags.
6.2 Copyright
The content you create is yours. All rights are reserved unless you would like to allow people to build upon your work in ways that are prohibited by the most restrictive license,in which case you may select a license from the creative commons licenses described below. Assign your license at the time of posting, or later, by editing the post. The University of Pennsylvania Library reserves the right to display your post in Library materials, and on library websites. Please note that material you find on the web is covered by copyright law.
What kind of material am I allowed to post?
Much of the material on the web, and especially material in licensed library databases, is already protected by copyright and has restricted uses. Posting an "excessive" portion of a resource; such as an entire journal article abstract or a complete journal article is prohibited. For more information on the Acceptable Use of Electronic Resources, please see our Policy. The Penn Library reserves the right to remove posts from Penntags. If we remove one of your posts, we will attempt to notify you.
The license assigned to a post applies only to the annotation portion of the post, and only to the annotation in so far as it is an original work created by the owner of the post. The license does not apply to the PennTags, nor to content that is simply copied from other websites. The license assigned to a project applies to the assembly and arrangement of posts. Copyright for the posts in a project is always held by the creator of the posts.
Available licences:
The following creative commons licenses are available for PennTags users to apply to posts and projects.
Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives (by-nc-nd)
This license is the most restrictive of our six main licenses, allowing redistribution. This license is often called the "free advertising" license because it allows others to download your works and share them with others as long as they mention you and link back to you, but they can't change them in any way or use them commercially.
Read the Commons Deed | View Legal Code
Attribution Non-commercial Share Alike (by-nc-sa)
This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. Others can download and redistribute your work just like the by-nc-nd license, but they can also translate, make remixes, and produce new stories based on your work. All new work based on yours will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also be non-commercial in nature.
Read the Commons Deed | View Legal Code
Attribution Non-commercial (by-nc)
This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge you and be non-commercial, they don't have to license their derivative works on the same terms.
Read the Commons Deed | View Legal Code
Attribution No Derivatives (by-nd)
his license allows for redistribution, commercial and non-commercial, as long as it is passed along unchanged and in whole, with credit to you.
Read the Commons Deed | View Legal Code
Attribution Share Alike (by-sa)
This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work even for commercial reasons, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. This license is often compared to open source software licenses. All new works based on yours will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also allow commercial use.
Read the Commons Deed | View Legal Code
Attribution (by)
This license lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation. This is the most accommodating of licenses offered, in terms of what others can do with your works licensed under Attribution.
Read the Commons Deed | View Legal Code
6.3 Policies and FAQ's
Use of PennTags is governed by the Library’s Privacy Policy and content is subject to the University’s Policy on Appropriate Use of Electronic Resources , policies in Handbook for Faculty and Academic Administrators , the Penn Book , and the Code of Student Conduct.
Can my posts be seen in Google?
Yes, the posts in Penntags, including your Pennkey username, are visible to anyone searching the web.
Can I get an account with a username different than my PennKey?
User identities can only be displayed as Pennkeys.
For how long will my posts stay in Penntags?
We have no intention of removing posts from Penntags unless we need to. However, if a post has not been used (noone, including the owner, has clicked on it) for over two years, we may remove it. The library will make an attempt to contact you if we plan to remove your post.
Will my links work forever?
URLs don't last forever. While we will endeavor to keep Penntags links stable, we can not guarantee that webpages you link to will not be removed or changed. If you find that one of your posts links to a webpage that you did not intend, we encourage you to change/remove it.
Can I use this as an alum?
We are considering providing access to Penn alumni. However, at this point, access is restricted to current Penn Faculty, Staff and Students. We will offer the option of exporting your Penntags to a similar service like del.icio.us, or as a stand alone file, however.
What should I do if I find content in PennTags that I believe is illegal or inappropriate?
The content in PennTags is subject to the University’s Policy on Appropriate Use of Electronic Resources , policies in Handbook for Faculty and Academic Administrators , the Penn Book , and the Code of Student Conduct.
7.Tagging Tips
The great thing about PennTags is that you can use any keywords you want to describe your posts; you tailor them to your own needs! You can use as many or as few as you want.
The most important thing to remember is that every time you hit the space bar, you're creating a new tag. So use the underscore (_) to make multi-word tags, e.g., political_science.
In case you're just getting started and want some advice, here are some tips for tagging that we've found useful:
Use tags that make sense to you.
Create tags that are concise and meaningful, as well as easy to remember and find. Ask yourself: will I still remember this tag when I next work on this project?
Use simple tags.
When using tags to describe a complex topic, break the topic down into several smaller concepts. Don't try to represent everything in one tag. For example, tag a resource with philadelphia mayoral elections (3 separate tags) instead of philadelphia_mayoral_elections (1 tag). If you really want to use multi-word tags, keep them short. Remember: Dr._Strangelove is a lot easier to manage than Dr._Stranglove,_Or:_How_I_Learned_to_Stop_Worrying_and_Love_the_Bomb.
Be consistent with yourself and others.
When you're adding new posts, you'll see your recently-used tags displayed in the posting box. That way, you can easily remember which tags you've used in the past and can choose to use them again. If you see that someone else is using a tag that matches your interest, use that tag when you're adding similar resources. This option is one of many that makes PennTags a social bookmarking tool.
Don't overlap tags.
This tip goes along with being simple and consistent. If you're tagging something cinema, don't also tag it movies. Picking one term will cut down on effort and confusion.
Use plural nouns
While you can always create your own tags, in the world of tagging, people usually use plural nouns. So, when tagging an article about Spiderman, consider using superheroes instead of superhero.
All right, we're librarians. We can't resist pointing out that we've organized a lot of information over the past few thousand years, so we have opinions about this kind of thing. We've found that people often search for items based on the following categories, so it makes sense to tag your posts with some of the following criteria. Of course, only use these if they're relevant to your source.
Author or creator
Who made it? The government? Your friend?
Format
Sometimes, you only remember that a resource was a book, so make a note of the format. Try adding as a tag: movies, books, articles, blogs, search_engines, statistics, case_studies, etc.
Location of coverage
This is one place that you might want to break the "no overlap" rule. If you tag a newspaper from Philadelphia, you might someday want to find all of your Pennsylvania newspapers, so overlapping coverage may make sense here. Try philadelphia pennsylvania united_states university_city.
Date of coverage
We'll capture the date you've added the post, but if it matters that the source is 16th century, make a note of it. Try historical 16th_century 1676, etc.
Topic
This tip is pretty obvious, but try to think of how you might think to search for this resource in the future, and how others might think to search for it.
Relevance to you
Is this resource for a class? Which class? Do you want to show this to your Uncle? How would he look for it?
8. Glossary
Action Tools - ??? (does this need a definition?)
Add - to create a post in PennTags by capturing a URL and title, and optionally assigning tags and notes to it.
Copy - to add a post initially identified by another PennTags owner to your tag space. You may change the URL, title, notes and tags associated with a record when it is copied. Any annotations associated with the original post will not be copied.
Owner - an individual who has created a post or project. In Penntags, owners are always members of the Penn community, and are identified by their Pennkey usernames.
Post - an individual entry in PennTags. Each post has a URL, title, and optional tags and notes. Each post is associated with a single owner.
Project - a collection of posts organized by an owner.
Related to - listing of tags that occur in conjunction with another tag.
Remove - to delete a post from a project. This action will not delete the post from an owner's tag space. (Don't think this still needs to be here since the action is now labelled Remove from Project)
Resource
Toolbox - ??? (does this need a definition?)
Tag (noun) - a keyword assigned by an owner to a post in PennTags. Tags can be single words, or words combined with an underscore (e.g., political_science).
Tag (verb) - to assign keywords to a post for organizing and sharing posts/bookmarks. See Tagging Tips for advice on creating meaningful and memorable tags.
Tag Cloud - a dynamic visual and textual representation of commonly used tags. Tags used more frequently appear in larger fonts and different color gradations than those used less frequently. The number of times a tag has been used will appear if you mouse-over the tag.
Tag Space - a web page associated with a particular owner, tag or series of tags.