Start bookmarking online and create your own library | Tech | Small Business Connect

Marcel Oudejans

With an abundance of useful and interesting articles to be found online, it can be very easy to forget where you found a webpage that you want to read again.

When we only had books, “bookmarking” was a fairly simple process: you’d fold over the page corner, place a piece of paper or card between the pages, or you could stick a tag on the page edge.

However, saving pages online can be more complicated, so here are some tips to make bookmarking easier and more useful:

BOOKMARKING FACILITY

Most internet browsers offer a bookmarking facility. I recommend you avoid using this function as the bookmarks are saved on your computer. If your computer gets destroyed, lost or stolen, you will lose all your bookmarks (unless you do regular backups). Go ahead and bookmark the websites you use on a daily basis, but don’t rely on your browser’s bookmarking facility.

CLIPPING

You can save a webpage as a “note” (also known as “clipping”) to an online note service, like Evernote– see last month’s article).

Evernote will save a simple version of the page to your online notebook, as well as any tags you use to organise or remember the information. The note will not update if the original article is updated, but you will still be able to see the source URL of your note.

You can access and search your notes from any online browser, or mobile device using the app (iOS or Android). Both free and premium versions are available.

DIIGO

Diigo (www.diigo.com) is an online service that calls itself “a multi-tool for knowledge management”.

You can save, annotate and share pages to your online library, along with any notes, comments or tags you would like to add. You can also save your bookmarks into lists, or create a network of people who share common bookmarks (like your business team). Diigo offers a premium service that will help you find a bookmark with its search facility. So even if you can only remember a keyword or two from the page, Diigo will help you find the relevant bookmark. You can access your bookmarks from any online browser, or mobile device using the app (iOS or Android) because Diigo saves your bookmarks online. Both free and premium versions available.

POCKET

Using www.getpocket.com is another way to “save” webpages to your “pocket”. It’s most commonly used when people want to save an article, email, video or other content to “read it later”, most likely on a mobile device (iOS or Android). For example, if you saved this article to your “pocket”, and allowed your app to synchronize, you’d be able to read it offline at your convenience.

Typically it would save a “text only” version of the article, so that you get the content without the surrounding website content or images. Pocket has recently released a premium version which permanently saves articles so that they’re accessible even if the original page is deleted, adds a search function to find keywords or tags in older articles you’ve saved and it can suggest tags to make organising your information even easier. Both free and premium versions are available.

Bookmarking and the ability to save webpages and articles is an important skill to learn and use regularly. Creating and maintaining your own personal online library will help you manage the information you want to keep and remember.

  •  Marcel Oudejans is an entertainer, motivational speaker and soft skills trainer. Go to www.workplaylife.co.za for more information.