BLOGS, RSS, WHAT???

FINDING MORE LIBRARIAN BLOGS

Here is a neat tool for finding more Library/Librarian related blogs.

http://www.pubsub.com/lists/librarian.php

This newly created list is from PubSub and ranks the blogs by popularity.

I don't think this blog is on there yet :-(

MORE NEAT THINGS YOU CAN DO WITH BLOGLINES

There is one thing that I forgot, or didn't get a chance, to tell you about during the class on November 4th. I think this is very cool!

YOU CAN USE BLOGLINES TO MONITOR YOUR EMAIL LISTSERVS!!

Listservs are one of the good ways to communicate with people who are interested in the same things that you are. There are many really good library related listservs out there. But they fill up your email account really fast. Why not let Bloglines collect all of the email posts for you, and you can read them when you have the time, instead of having them forced on you. Here are a few different sites that you can use to find listservs to subscribe to.

http://www.cde.state.co.us/cdelib/sllistserv.htm
http://www.lsoft.com/lists/listref.html (Use the "Search for a mailing list of interest" option)

The last step is to click the send email button on this last screen.

WELCOME

Welcome to the Blogs, RSS, What??? class.

Instructors:

Michelle Jeske - Web Information Services
mjeske@denver.lib.co.us
720-865-1725

Susie Whiteford - General Reference
swhitefo@denver.lib.co.us
720-865-1363

This class is designed to give you a basic introduction to RSS and Blogs.

GLOSSARY

Aggregator – “A program used for watching feeds from news sites, blogs, and videoblogs or vlogs, also known as a News Aggregator. An aggregator generally aggregates a number of user-specified feeds into one easily readable webpage or client application.” (www.wikipedia.org, accessed on August 8, 2005)

Blog – “A weblog (usually shortened to blog, but occasionally spelled web log) is a web-based publication consisting primarily of periodic articles (normally in reverse chronological order). Although most early weblogs were manually updated, tools to automate the maintenance of such sites made them accessible to a much larger population, and the use of some sort of browser-based software is now a typical aspect of "blogging".

Blogs range in scope from individual diaries to arms of political campaigns, media programs, and corporations. They range in scale from the writings of one occasional author, to the collaboration of a large community of writers. Many weblogs enable visitors to leave public comments, which can lead to a community of readers centered around the blog; others are non-interactive. The totality of weblogs or blog-related websites is often called the blogosphere. When a large amount of activity, information and opinion erupts around a particular subject or controversy in the blogosphere, it is sometimes called a blogstorm or blog swarm.” (www.wikipedia.org, accessed on August 8, 2005)

Blogger – Free server-based software used to create your own blog.

Bloglines – Server-based aggregator software.

Feeds – RSS feeds or Atom feeds used by aggregators.

Podcasting – Podcasting (also known as blogcasting) is a method of publishing audio broadcasts via the Internet, allowing users to subscribe to a feed of new files (usually MP3s). It became popular in late 2004, largely due to automatic downloading audio onto portable players or personal computers. (www.wikipedia.org, accessed on August 8, 2005)

RSS – RSS is a method of describing news or other Web content that is available for "feeding" (distribution or syndication) from an online publisher to Web users.

Webliography – an electronic bibliography of websites

BLOGS – WHAT ARE THEY?

Blogs can "be" many things

Diaries
Journals
Collections
An avenue for professional communication
A way for families or friends to communicate

Here are some examples of blogs that have been useful for my professional development: http://www.theshiftedlibrarian.com http://dplwis.blogspot.com http://dplrefbooks.blogspot.com http://www.lisnews.com http://computer.howstuffworks.com/blog.htm/printable

WHY WOULD YOU READ A BLOG?

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

If I wanted to keep informed in the areas that interest me, I would need to read many, many journals; look at many, many websites; and spend many, many hours doing searches in the electronic databases to find the information that I'm interested in. Do I have the time to do that? NO. Is that a smart way to use my time? NO. There are many, many blogs out there! There are many, many bloggers out there who are posting great information! There are many, many librarian bloggers out there who want to help other librarians keep informed. There are many, many librarian bloggers out there who are paying attention to what's going on, then posting the events to their blogs, so other librarians without much time for professional reading can keep informed. There are many, many librarian bloggers who want to share their professional experience so that others can benefit.

PERSONAL INTERESTS

There are many blogs out there that have been created by avid hobbyists.
Your family can use a blog to share photos, communications, recipes, stories, etc.

OTHER REASONS

Take a look at this blog entry for more reasons to read blogs
http://www.unc.edu/~zuiker/blogging101/readwrite.html

WHY WRITE A BLOG?

The reasons are varied:

Professional Development opportunities for sharing your knowledge
Reporting on developments, happenings, opinions
Keeping a journal
Create a handy little "notebook" to keep track of all your important, most used sites

There are two different blogs that I want to create when I get a chance to start something new. I'd like to create a blog for our desk file. All of those little pieces of information that we've gathered over the years and use again and again are stored in a file drawer at the General Reference Desk. Those wonderful bits of information are only available to the small number of librarians that work there. Those wonderful bits of information could be available to a greater number of librarians if they were shared through a blog. Those wonderful bits of information could be available anywhere that there is access to a computer.
I'd also like to create a blog for all things relating to SmartyPants. Currently we have a webpage that is basically maintained by DNS. If I turned it into a Blog, then I would be able to change and add information anytime that I wanted.

Any more reasons?

HOW DO YOU KEEP TRACK OF LOTS OF BLOGS?

BLOGLINES

Bloglines is a free website that you can use to monitor anything with an rss feed which includes lots of blogs, saved searches, news websites.

The neat thing about Bloglines is that it will tell you when something new has been added to the blog, so that you don't have to continuously go to that website to check for updates. They come to you!

http://www.bloglines.com/

BLOGLINES

HOW TO SUBSCRIBE

Watch this video, courtesy of Marianne Lenox and Jessamyn West
http://theloo.org/rss/index.html#8

Take a few minutes and create your own Bloglines subscription

THE BLOGLINES WEBPAGE - WHAT YOU'LL SEE

ORGANIZING YOUR FEEDS

One of the inherent traits of people who work in a library is the need to be organized. Thankfully, Bloglines has wonderful features that let you organize to your heart's content.

To organize your feeds into folders:

Step 2: Mark the blogs that you want to put into a folder

Step 3: Choose Action

Step 4: Name the new folder

Step 5: Open your new folder

HOW TO FIND BLOGS OR FEEDS YOU WANT TO READ

There are many different ways to find blogs that you would like to read.

You can:

look at what other people are reading

Subscriber

COLLECTING, SAVING, ORGANIZING THOSE INTERESTING TIDBITS

When I first started reading blogs I came across some interesting blog posts that I thought that I wouldn't ever forget. That I could always remember the information in them. Well I was wrong!! There was one particular post about creating listserv subscriptions in Bloglines so you could quit getting them in your email. I wish I could find that blog post again.

I started "saving" blogs posts by emailing them to myself, but I soon found that I was filling up my email with blog posts. A much more efficient way to save posts is to clip them.

So, to save those posts that you find interesting and want to save you can collect and save them in a Clippings folder. You can even organize them just like you did with your Feed folders.

After you click on the "Clip/Blog This" link you will get a popup box that looks like this:

Now you can see all of your saved goodies!

EMAIL A POST

Occasionally, you will want to share a post that you think is a great idea with a friend or colleague. Bloglines makes it very easy to do this.

Just use the Email function.

COOL "SPECIAL" THINGS YOU CAN SUBSCRIBE TO

Subscribe to searches

Yahoo! Traffic Reports & Maps

PubMed Searches

Del.icio.us searches http://del.icio.us/rss/tag/library+blog

Library Elf www.libraryelf.com

HOW DO YOU GET STARTED CREATING YOUR OWN BLOG?

BLOGGER
www.blogger.com

Take a look at Marianne Lenox's really great website on creating blogs at:
http://iamsogonnablogthis.blogspot.com

PODCASTING

Podcasting is an audio version of a blog. There are many, many podcasts out there. People record themselves during all kinds of situations, such as giving lectures (many library people are creating podcasts of training sessions to share).

Radio stations are podcasting; NPR, KYGO are two that I know of.
http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast/podcast_directory.php
http://www.kygo.com/home/audiophile_podcast.php

How to find podcasts? Here are a few options.
http://audio.weblogs.com/
http://www.podcastalley.com/
http://www.apple.com/itunes/podcasts/
http://www.podcast.net/

Web Information Services is working on developing podcasts of the Phone-A-Story program. Currently Phone-A-Story is recorded on for playback over a phone, and would be a perfect way to break out into the podcasting realm.

BLOG AND RSS PLANS FOR DPL

I'll let Michelle tell you

BLOGS, RSS, WHAT???

Thursday, November 10, 2005