RSS

Hmm, so much to think about when talking about my personal
experiences with social software, where do I start? Let’s start by saying that
I am old and am a creature of habit – not to say that I would never consider
using all of these technologies to some degree, but I am so used to doing
things online in one way that I don’t know when I would find the time to get
into new habits. For instance, I am sure RSS is a good thing and can really
synthesize my online surfing, but I like going to each website separately

Wow, what a whirlwind of social software technology we have
looked at in the past 14 weeks. While all of these technologies have some use
in a library setting, some are more conducive to the library environment than
others. I really like the ideas we looked at with media sharing, as I think
this is a medium where libraries can really show how far they have come and use
media sharing as a great marketing tool to show your library to the world. This
also seems like an easily implemented medium, as most (if not all) libraries

So much to talk about! Some of the libraries we’ve looked at in our case studies have done great things with social software that I think add real value to library services. Among the projects that seem the most useful are:

This week, I'm going to look at the more personal reflection aspects of these final weeks, mostly because the majority of my free time is going to finishing the project, and I'd like to do a discussion of social software in libraries and best practices justice.

Blogging for these past twelve weeks has been an interesting experience. I like how hyperlinks in a blog allow me to write for an informed audience, while providing links to background material for those new to a topic. Libraries can use blogs to inform patrons about upcoming events, services, highlight collections and answer user questions. Because blogs are a bilateral communications tool they encourage patron participation, accountability, and transparency more than one-way news releases.

Since I took one of my one-week vacations from blogging last week, I'll mention a little on RSS in general at the same time before looking at this week's readings. Like a number of other people have posted, I always thought of RSS as something that was potentially interesting, but before this course I had never gotten around to setting up a reader. The few times that I had clicked on RSS feeds in the past, I ended up with some folder in my Firefox browser that I didn't know what to do with. Since getting Google Reader set up, I'm much more excited about RSS feeds.

The longer I take this course, the more I feel like an old geezer. As a Gen X-er, I always felt like I was pretty "hip" to new trends and scoffed at the notion that Gen-Y-ers or Milennials--or whatever the going term is today--were somehow more adept with technology than me. The further I study the tools in this course, the more I realize how "out of the loop" I really was, and how much this course will benefit me in trying to be a librarian with a fresh perspective on technology.

While I believe RSS feeds are an excellent resource for libraries in general, I am interested in how RSS feeds will be utilized on a wide spread scale and the possible parameters set around their use in the future.

Using RSS feeds as a means of automatically updating library websites is a fantastic time saving resource when staff members are too busy to keep the site current. Also, feeds allow links to relevant news, articles, online journals, books or video reviews, etc.

It has been interesting over the past two weeks to see the many ways RSS technology is being used and I'm curious to see how it will evolve to meet the needs of its users. It's a good idea to use RSS feeds to keep up with your interests online, actively and selectively searching out potential sources. RSS feeds are great for keeping current and they encourage continuous professional learning, something that is important but can be time-consuming.

As Philip J. Hollenback wrote in Bloglines, Flickr, and del.icio.us make RSS delectable, RSS readers used to be primarily downloadable software. Users were stuck reading their RSS feeds on one computer unless they took time to sort through and "read" the same articles again.