Feeds: Day 4 (final day)

I wasn't surprised that when I checked my feeds today only two had new postings. The first was Library Stuff and the post was disappointing. It was a short blog from Steve who said he was disappointed to find out that just when he deleted his Twitter account, Britney Spears created one. Maybe he was being sarcastic? I can only hope so. The other feed with a new post was NPR Topics: Books. I'm really beginning to like this feed. The newest post was on a book of poems by Sharon Dolin titled Burn and Dodge. Not a lot of information is given about the collection except that it is on the theme of sin. Still, I find myself really liking this feed because it gives quick information on new books of all genres and at least part of the time has pretty in depth information on them. While I know books are far from all a library is about, new ones of interest still matter (and I want to know about them anyway). I will probably keep track of this feed. As far as the others go, I will drop the genealogy feed for now just because I rarely find much I understand or that is relevant to me right now. Library Stuff seems like the weaker of the two library feeds, so I will drop it as well. I will try and keep up with librarian.net as it seems interesting and helpful. My overall opinion of feeds is that they can be a really good way to keep up on certain topics. I was really happy to discover how easy they are to follow. I have in the past joined discussion forums on topics I am interested in, and they completely clogged my inbox. There was just too much to read every day. The feeds I have been watching this week seem to provide relevant information in manageable amounts. I can really see their potential.

Feeds: Day Three

Today when I checked my feeds two still had no new postings (librarian.net and Library Stuff), but the other two did have new postings. Yay! The NPR Topics: Books feed had a new posting about a new young adult book by Neil Gaiman called The Graveyard Book. The book is about a two-year-old boy who is taken in a raised by ghosts after his family is killed. While it sounds pretty gruesome, the blogger who posted about it recommends it and Gaiman in general. He says "Children as young as 9 will enjoy this sweet, funny and gentle tale; adults will appreciate its deeper undertones." I've never heard of Gaiman, but since I am interested in children's literature I can't help but be intrigued. My Midwestern Microhistory feed had a new post about a mention in the Oct. 8th issue of NEHGS eNews of the website of the Montgomery County Chapter, Ohio Genealogy Society. The blogger then gave a brief overview of the website. While I can see why this would be of interest to someone in genealogy, it didn't hold much interest for me. I noticed again that this is a feed more appropriate for someone in the field than for an interested outsider.

Back Again

After reading through the assignment sheet for the lab that this blog is a part of, I realized that my posts are supposed to be at least 200 words in length to count for credit. My last post saying that I had nothing to say was nowhere near, so I'm back. I have to admit that I hate having to post a certain amount to a blog (my last class required 600 words a week). It seems so much harder to think of things to say when you have to say something (if that makes sense). Anyway, I thought I could talk for a little while about my experience with wikis, blogs, RSS feeds and podcasts. Most of my experience with wikis and blogs comes from my last semester as an undergrad. I had two classes (one for my creative writing minor and one for my professional writing minor) for which I combined two projects into one bigger one. The final result of the project was a web site which I created for a young adult group in Ft. Wayne that performs West African music and dance. (They're pretty cool by the way. Their site is at http://www.trje.org and mine is at http://www.westafrikanoralliterature.weebly.com.) Anyway, the one class required a blog and at least 600 words a week in postings. The other required either a blog or a print log of the project. I chose a blog and used the same one for both classes, posting at least my required word count about the project and the kids I was working with (it is here on blogger). The professional writing class also required contribution to a class wiki about profession writing and our projects. So, I got some experience with both in the same semester. The interesting thing is that about halfway through Michael Schaefer from deepblog.com contacted me through my blog and asked some questions about the classes and how we were using blogs. He had found my blog through a link on the wiki. Turns out he was trying to study how blogs are being used by different people for different purposes. He seemed pretty interested in our use and we exchanged a couple of emails. That's the main reason (and to maybe draw people to my website) that I left the blog up after the project was done. So that's my blog/wiki experience. As far as RSS goes, it's pretty new to me, but I am beginning to see its potential. I may keep up on a couple of my feeds after this lab is over. Podcasts are a little more familiar as my cataloging prof uses them to give instructions to the class. They work out really well for an online class and make material easier to understand. I have "heard" other students say the same, that they are especially good for those who learn better by hearing than by reading. I guess all in all these technologies are as valuable as you make them. They can be used for fun, to keep up on news and events, and even for education. I don't think that web based and distance classes would be what they are without some of these "hot technologies." They (web based classes) have come a long way even since I began college only 5 years ago. I think they have really helped give web based education the potential to rival the on campus/in person kind. Of course that's just my opinion.

Feeds: Day Two

I don't really have anything interesting to report today since none of my feeds have any new postings. Three had new material posted yesterday and on one the most recent was Wed. Maybe no one has any news or opinions today. The good news is that Bloglines is still letting me log in even though I haven't confirmed my account. So, I will check on them again tomorrow and hope to have something more interesting to say.

Feeds: Day One

When I read through my feeds today, I realized that the content I was getting was dated from about Oct. 5th to the present. So, I will do a brief synopsis of all the post on the feed, not just those posted in the last 24 hours.

librarian.net

So far this looks to be an interesting and relevant feed. The posts are written by a librarian who claims to have been "putting the rarin back in librarian since 1999." It has 7131 subscribers. Some of the posts were short and didn't really make sense to me as they must have related to previous topics. There were a few, though, that did. The most recent was one announcing that the ALA is making PDFs of issues of AL Direct open and searchable. This is apparently the first step in a move that will make all issues of the publication freely available. I'm not personally familiar with AL Direct, but this seemed like a good thing to me. The next post was about a "holiday" proposed by Brian Herzog called Work Like a Patron Day (Oct. 15). The idea is for librarians to put themselves in the place of library users for a day and try to see things as they do. One issue mentioned was hours. No one wants to work evening and weekend hours, but these are often most convenient for patrons. The purpose of Work Like a Patron Day is to look at issues like this from a library user's perspective. The final and oldest interesting post apologized (sort of) for not giving recognition to Banned Books Week this year (which was a couple of weeks ago). The post discussed how other issues of freedom of information are important too (such as the ability to photocopy needed material without fearing copyright laws). All in all this seems like a good feed to keep up on for library related news and ideas.

Library Stuff

This feed provides many blog postings by "Steven." The feed claims to be "dedicated to resources for keeping current and professional development." All of the postings were short. One to three sentences and were essentially library related headlines. If you want more information, you have to hunt it down yourself. Some of the topics were: "Surfing the Internet Boosts Aging Brains," "'Dewey' Chronicles Life of Library Cat," and "Princeton's Gehry Library Banishes Stacks, Encourages Talking." While some of the topics sounded interesting, the lack of much information or opinion was disappointing.

NPR Topics: Books

This feed gives short bits of book news such as announcements of new books being released. Some of the most recent topics were: "Robert Jordan: Hemingway's Bipartisan Hero" which talks about how both current presidential candidates have listed For Whom the Bell Tolls as a favorite, "Saving America Through Energy Innovation" which talks about a book by Thomas Friedman that claims that saving the planet isn't about whales but about competitive necessity, and "Britain's Cherie Blair Speaks for Herself in Memoir" which talks about a new memoir out by the wife of British Prime Minister Tony Blair. There is also some information about books like The Book of Lies by Brad Meltzer. While this feed does not provide what could be called academic information, it is a good way to keep up on news in the world of books. something I consider worthwhile.

Midwestern Microhistory

This feed is about "Genealogy and family history in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Michigan, and neighbor and feeder states." I chose it because I am interested in genealogy and would like to learn more about it. The recent topics on this feed were: Midwestern mention in the September issue of National Genealogical Society Quarterly, a recommendation for a civil war blog which is currently discussing a cemetery in Detroit, and a recommendation for a new book called Place Names of Illinois by Edward Callary from the University of Illinois. The feed seems so far to offer news and links for those who may already be involved with genealogy in some way rather than the casual observer, but I still think it may prove interesting.

SLIS Feeds

Yesterday I subscribed to my four required SLIS related feeds through Bloglines (as an aside, I can't get the confirmation email to work no matter what I do so hopefully they let me keep using the account). They are: Library Stuff, Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, NPR Topics: Books, and Librarian.net. I intentionally only subscribed to two of the four recommended blogs listed under of "libraries" since I assumed many people in class would chose them. The others are not SLIS blogs specifically, but are topics that I thought were relevant to the field and interested me. I will post a quick synopsis of the feeds each day for the next 3 days.

Another Blog

I yet again have been assigned a blog for a class. This one is called Web-based Information Tools and is a prerequisite class for my SLIS (School of Library and Information Science) program. I'm going to be honest and say that I will be posting for about 3 days and then this blog will become inactive. Just putting that out there right now. I just don't have enough to say (at this point in my life anyway) to maintain a blog long term. Maybe someday. If you want to hear more of my opinions (which I doubt and don't blame you for) see my past class blog (Bookerdog) here at Blogger.