Tech Tips & Timely Tidbits
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Tech Tips and Timely Tidbits by Heather Loy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
All Together Now – Thing #2
Thing #2’s assignment is all about RSS feeds: learn about them, subscribe to a feed reader, and add feeds to your reader. After completing those steps, we’re asked to reflect on what we like about RSS/readers and how we might use them in our work and personal life. And, how can libraries use RSS technology?
I’ve been using an RSS reader for quite some time now. I originally used Google Reader (as I love all things Google), but switched to Bloglines earlier this year as some of my feeds weren’t updating properly on Google; however, I’m now having the same problem with Bloglines. <sigh> I guess no service can be perfect all of the time.
One thing I learned quickly, but was just an extension of my need to be organized, was to use folders to group my feeds. Here is a screen shot of my current groupings:
There are certain folders that I make a point of reading daily (SC Blogs, Favorites, and Library Profession) and as many of the others as I can each day. I’ve given up thinking I could keep it cleaned out, especially since I keep adding more feeds than I delete. For most of them I will simply scan the titles and/or scroll through them without truly reading the posts. As you can see, there are quite a few that I’ve marked keepers that I have some form of follow up I want to do: mention them on my blog, comment on, check out the resource(s) mentioned, etc.
I try not to stress over reading all of the posts and will quite frequently mark all as read. I figure that the folks I make a point of reading are reading the same ones as me and they’ll write or share anything important! Both professionally and personally, I’ve found RSS to be a great way to keep up with all of my interests. Of course, it can be a great time saver AND a great time waster.
As for using RSS in libraries, I’d be interested to read how others are utilizing them. I’m leery of getting to excited about using them since most Web 2.0 tools are currently blocked by my school district.
July 26th, 2008 at 5:21 am
I’ve bounced around with readers, too. I then downloaded FeedDemon, which is a desktop RSS feeder and it worked well. But I missed Google Reader (and the various things you can do with it — like share a feed with notes to friends).
I read my RSS to gather ideas and network with others. If you do it right, RSS is a wealth of information.
Kevin
July 26th, 2008 at 6:13 pm
I use Google Reader for my RSS feeds. I’ve tried other ones but then I end up going back to Google Reader. I feel comfortable with the keyboard shortcuts and I guess I’m too lazy to learn new ones. I also like being able to share things with Google Reader.
July 27th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
@Kevin and @Pat – I miss Google Reader tools, too! I really liked the ability to see which of my feeds haven’t been updated to help me weed out useless feeds. I was also able to mark all read of specific feeds; whereas, in Bloglines the mark all read marks ALL of my feeds as read. There were so many more features to Google. I guess I’ve convinced myself to move back to Google!