Feed Me: Exploration 4 - RSS Feeds and Feed Readers

I have to admit, I was a little resistant to feed readers. I only have about half a dozen blogs that I check each day, so it doesn't take all that much time to visit each individual site to see if there's anything new.

At least that's what I thought before I tried a feed reader.

I actually tried two: Bloglines and GoogleReader. They're both fairly easy to navigate and I would recommend both to patrons, but if I had to choose, I'd pick GoogleReader. It looks more professional than Bloglines, which looks a little too cartoon-ish for me.

So okay, I admit I like having a list of only the blogs where new information has been posted. I've also found that I've subscribed to more blogs and news sources as a result, knowing that the time I save by not checking out each individual blog/site allows me to read other blogs/sites that might interest me.

If you find that you want to comment, however, you'll have to click to the blog itself (which you can do easily from your reader). No problem. Unsubscribing is also easy. All in all, a painless exercise, which in this world can be a beautiful thing.

Exploration 3: Flickr and Photo Sharing Communities

Although I've seen Flickr pictures and photo albums from family members, I have not set up a personal account. I have, however, placed several photos on Facebook, which also allows tags and comments. And of course I frequently post photos on my other blogs.

Facebook, like Flickr, allows you to place your cursor over individuals in photos and identify who they are, although the person who posted the photo(s) can choose to tag one or more people in the photo or none of them. (I always feel sorry for the poor guy that's the only one not tagged in a photo.) I think it's also cool that Flickr allows you to view technical details about the photos, which I don't believe is an option on Facebook.

Welcome to Tangled Up in Info: Explorations 1 & 2

Actually "Tangled Up in Books" was my preferred title, but it was already taken.

Exploration 1 was fun reading, although I was quite familiar with much of it. The article on Web 2.0 from Next Space: The OCLC Newsletter was very interesting. Most of it was review but some of it wasn't. Into a New World of Librarianship by Michael Stephens was nothing short of fascinating. I found the article to be quite positive and optimistic. I'm hoping that people who are a bit intimidated by technology (and the Web) will be open to changing technologies and how they can help us help patrons. It's really more exciting than terrifying!

Exploration 2 was pretty simple, since I've been blogging for several years and already contribute to four blogs. (Hey, what's one more?) I'll have more to write later after I've tinkered with 2.0 a bit more.