I would say not to directly jump into the GUI like Tortoise-SVN and instead do it manually by editing the required config files and the svn command-line binary.... Why you may ask ? You can learn lots this way.... the svn command has lots of options and once you have got a hold of them, you can do magic....
I'm using SVN at my workplace..... Although I'm not a CM (configuration mgmt) person I've done lots of tagging, merging, stuff and so have found the command-line version simple and comprehensive to use..... There is a tool called websvn which is a php based web-ui for your svn repository.... You can use it to monitor check-ins and logs.....