No, I agree that “social” is the best term. But I am tired of it as a modifier. I guess part me, too, is wondering how much of bibliography and especially book reviews throughout history were only for the individual doing the work? That is, many bibliographies and, dare I say, all book reviews have always been social.

I simply do not see that because some book review is on Amazon vs. printed in the local newspaper or even the New Yorker makes it any more social. In fact, it does not. It only makes it more accessible to those with a computer and an internet connection. Being linkable does not “social” make!

Perhaps I fear these uses of language are as dangerous s those that have led us to the brain is (simply) a computer, among other things.

Collaborative (another overused but still useful concept) is different and should be reserved for when something truly is collaborative.

Your last set of questions are interesting, but I do not have any answers at the moment. My first stab is to say that they are highly similar activities to past activities. There are a few axes they can be divided along–solely produced, collaboratively produced, self-published, formally published, etc. They are also highly analogous to pre-Internet activity. But I imagine that the “easy” availability and facilitated sharing add something to the equation. I am just not convinced how much that is, and I do not believe it makes them any more “social” than previous activities that were meant to be shared.

I was thinking more about Levinson, musical works, and a general conception of works.

I think that the concept of the work is basically the same. What I see as being different is the relationship between the work, a manifestation, and the actor creating a manifestation. Compare the role that a musician plays in creating a manifestation of a musical work to the role a publishing house plays in creating a manifestation a written work.

-karen.

Social bibliography seems to have a broad meaning for Weibel, if this blog post http://weibel-lines.typepad.com/weibelines/2006/08/dangerous_water.html
is any guide:
“Social bibliography – reviews, tagging, recommender systems”

“Social” gets tired but what else would you use? Collaborative bibliography? Does that apply even when you don’t interact with your “collaborators” directly? I think we need more specific words. There are many sorts of “social bibliography”:
-the tendency to post reviews for digital and non-digital materials (not published in newspapers, journals, or community newsletters but on Amazon, blogs, LibraryThing, OpenWorldCat, …)
-tagging of webpages
-tagging of academic papers (e.g. CiteULike, Connotea)
-widely sharing lists of reading materials (e.g. this post, LibraryThing, …)
-tagging of conference blog coverage with pre-arranged tags (e.g. CiL2007)
-collaboratively constructing and sharing bibliographies in real-time using formal groups or group accounts, (e.g. the MMORPG studies bibliography at CiteULike
http://www.citeulike.org/group/MMORPGStudies
(which is specifically called a “social bibliography” in this post:
https://lists.secondlife.com/pipermail/educators/2006-October/002861.html
))

There is a continuum. We could argue whether previously established web activities like these are social bibliographies:
-listing one’s own publications, on a personal website
-sharing a more general bibliography on a personal website, e.g. http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/bates/bib-intro.html
-posting interlinked CS bibliographies such as CiteSeer, DBLP, and Rexa

Are these all the same activity? Or different activities? To what extent do they correspond to traditional activities of bibliography-making and -publishing? And to what extent are they some new activity?