Locating Newsfeeds

I’ve never had any problem locating newsfeeds. I’ve never even considered using a search engine of some sort to look for newsfeeds; I’ve stumbled upon more of the sorts of feeds which I’d like to read than I could ever actually make time for simply by surfing from site to site, wherever the links of blogs or websites I read take me. Frankly, none of the three recommended by the program served me any better. Technorati was probably the best, while Syndic8 was atrocious (and very poorly designed to boot). I think I’ll stick with serendipity to find my blogs.

Technorati

Backtracking a bit here, I come to Technorati. I’ve been vaguely familiar with Technorati for some time, with a number of real techie friends having used it for years. But it has never really appealed to me. The site has not historically been very user friendly, and I haven’t seen any great advantage in its services. When using it for searching, the tag search seems to be the most useful. I found all sorts of relevant articles that way. Searching for blog posts was hit and miss, and the directory was far too open-ended (fine if you’re just surfing, less helpful if you’re looking for very specific topics or information). I went ahead and claimed my blog, but I doubt I’ll use Technorati much in the future.

My Travels (Such as They Are)

And here I expose myself as the pathetic person I am by revealing how little I’ve traveled. I long to see the world, the explore the four corners of the earth and see what beauties this world has to share. And here is the fruits of my desires. A few trips to some western states and a single jaunt back East. How embarrassing. Someday I’ll do better.

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RSS Feeds

I love rss feeds. Have ever since I first learned about them a year or two ago. I’m by nature an obsessively inquisitive person, and could spend hours browsing through my favorite blogs, news websites, and other Web information sources. Now, just ever so slightly, the process has been made easier, because much of the information comes to me. I can see if something new has been added, rather than wasting my time going to the site only to see that nothing meaningful has been added. Fantastic!

And while I’m not certain it has much relevance in helping us to serve our patrons, it could very well help us keep up in our profession. It is now easy for us to keep up with the latest thought in the library world; just subscribe to some of the feeds by the plethora of professional librarians on the Web. It could also help streamline our staff communication. Instead of cluttering a couple hundred inboxes with news updates, what if computer services, circulation, technical services, the tech reps committee, the management committee, et al had their own blogs, which they would update whenever there is information for the entire staff, and to which all staff members would subscribe on their RSS reader? I think there is some great potential there.

On the other hand, RSS feeds have only added to my informational overload angst. No matter how much we do to streamline the process, I’ll never be able to compile all the information upon which I love to graze down to a manageable level. I have well over two-hundred rss feeds on library science, library-related technology, politics, religion, local thought, graphic design, web design, web standards, Mac/Apple technology, and a few other subjects. There is no way I can keep up with them! The reader is constantly accumulating unread material—material about which I feel guilty that I haven’t found time to read, because I do really want to know.

Curse you, RSS gods, for teasing me with such seductive technology!

Flickr images II

I’m the Pope? (Rome)

Originally uploaded by Giampaolo Macorig

Maybe Ireland isn’t our top choice. Maybe it’s Italy, emphasis on Rome. The history, the architecture… Having studied Latin for four years, I’d really like to see one of the most important cities in the history of the planet.

Flickr image

Ireland

Originally uploaded by deelightfulpix

My wife and I long to travel (though as the upcoming map exercise will show, I’ve done pathetically little). And the destination which tops our list? Ireland. We both have been beguiled by the romantic Celtic image. We’d love to explore the Emerald Isle, with its castles, its lush greenery, its jagged coasts, its idyllic small pastoral towns. Oh, I’m sure the dreamy romantic image isn’t accurate, but don’t shatter our dreams yet!

Online Book Databases

This is perhaps my favorite library 2.0 tool. Ever since I started blogging, I’ve considered posting book reviews and creating a page to serve as an annotated bibliography. Then I discovered LibraryThing. No more need to create and format my own bibliography/book database! I can easily list, tag, rate, and review books through these services! I’ve created separate fiction (mostly fantasy) and nonfiction (history, economics, and politics— be warned if you decide to check it out!) lists. Neither are in any way comprehensive, but they are a start.

I’ve heard good things about other sites, but I already put a good start in on LibraryThing, and I’m not interested in duplicating my efforts elsewhere unless I figure out an easy way to export/import the information I’ve already entered.

I also ennjoy the fact that I can use LibraryThing to find new books. I’ve often used Amazon, with their extensive reviews and their “also looked at” feature to see what else on a given subject I might like to read. But I would prefer not to use a commercial site for this info (nothing against Amazon per se). These online book databases provide alternative resources.

Can this serve the library? What if the library were to link to the bookshelves of employees on the SLCPL MySpace page? We could use these services for readers advisories (I think they would serve the purpose more effectively than a wiki).

Technorati

I’ve been heretofore unnecessarily longwinded in my posts so far, so I’m going to keep this one more laconic.

Technorati seems like an effective option for searching for content in blogs. Will it be very useful for research as a librarian? It probably won’t be my first choice, as the blogosphere in general isn’t the most reliable source of verifiable information. Nor does it seem the most efficient source for the type of content I typically seek. But it is good to have yet another option in my toolbelt as I help patrons.

Social Bookmarking/Tagging

I had a vexing problem in college (late ’90s). I had a computer at home with all sorts of very specialized bookmarks which I used on a daily basis. But I often used the computers on campus, on which I had no bookmarks. I had no webpage on which to add links (which would have been a pain to hand-code in any case). My only recourse was to copy and paste the urls to a wordprocessing document, put them on a zip-disk, and then open the document and copy the urls into the address bar of the browser. It worked, but it was cumbersome. Oh, how I wished for more easily portable bookmarks.

Needless to say, I love social bookmarking! I can access my links wherever I go. And with the advent of tagging, no need to hunt through folders to find the link under which category I ended up listing it (was that “politics”? “Local interest”? “social theory”? Oh @^*$!). I have multiple ways of finding particular links, and multiple ways to sort and list them based on the various tags. Brilliant.

I’m still trying to decide between Del.icio.us and Ma.gnolia. I was initially drawn more to Ma.gnolia, because it’s more conciously chosen visual design made it easier to use. Additionally, it had been designed with care for web standards, which I believe are important to the future usability of the web. I think it was initially more advanced than del.icio.us in some other aspects, such as the ability to keep tags private. However, I’ve been trying Del.icio.us as well, and Del.icio.us has some advantages in the manner in which it shares information and helps you find related links. I wish one had a clear cut advantage so that I wouldn’t have to keep two identical lists of links (any suggestions?).

I’ve been using the sites almost exclusively as a repository for my own links, the “bookmarking” aspect. I’ve not experimented at all with the “social” aspect of the sites; no using them to find other resources in which I might be interested. But I can certainly see in theory how it might work. I can see how it could be used for research, though (and here comes the netiot in me again) I don’t see how it would be much more effective than Google. I think both would probably be a gamble in terms of academic research.

Using a social bookmarking site for the SLCPL library links would be a very effective way of presenting our bookmarks. With extensive use of tagging, patrons could easily come up with lists of resources related to their interest from our page. A great way to serve our patrons.

Social Networking Blues

I think that in some ways I’m a netiot-savant. I’m a pretty web savvy person, picked right up the ideas of RSS, online databases, tagging, podcasts, blogs, etc when I stumbled upon them. I have no problems configuring my browser, finding and adding plug-ins for the sorts of services that I want, using html and css for basic web design, etc. But there are other parts which I fail to grasp. But I struggle with Social networking sites (SNS).

I get the concept. Create an online profile and develop networks of associates of various sorts connected to that profile. The idea is appealing to me. For some time I’ve mulled over the idea of creating a central online repository for all things me; a webpage on which I could provide links to my different blogs, display my art, provide a calendar of community and political events which I wanted to promote, link to the various websites I found worthwhile, etc. SNS seem to fit the bill. But I’m unhappy with MySpace. I can’t seem to figure out how to configure the layout and services the way I want; either MySpace isn’t flexible enough to do what I want, or I can’t figure out the interface. FaceBook seems better, but still not as flexible as I’d like. Both seem more focused on dating and superficial socializing (What is your sign? What are you looking for?) than on meaningful information. I’ll have to keep playing around with them and see if either would serve my needs well enough to keep around after the Library 2.0 program is over.

LinkedIn is another example of my occasional web senility. I get that this is a professional SNS for career development and job searching. But in the limited time I’ve spent sniffing around the site, I’ve been incapable of determining how it is supposed to work.