News? What news? I can't keep up with any news and I visit very few websites regularly so it was hard for me to come up with some news I would care about keeping up with. So, I just picked a couple things I'm interested in (pro baseball, college softball, parenting, and Library 2.0 of course) and started adding feeds.
Google Reader seemed the likely suspect as my aggregator account since I already used Google for email and to create my blog. I had also used it as a blog search tool. Hello Google World! Anyway, it was very easy to either click the RSS icon on some of the websites or "add a subscription" to my Google Reader by copying the site's URL. So, I'd say news feeds are pretty easy to set up.
I guess I am happy that I have "centrally located" all of the news I want to know about, but I will still need the time to read it all! I guess it couldn't hurt to do a quick check on the news I care about each day from one place (only 5 minutes, though ;). I think it would be a useful tool for busy librarians who are interested in a quick way to learn anything new about web technology, new books, collection management, and even library building structure!
Monday, January 26, 2009
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Thing 3 - Blog Search Tools
To be honest, I don't know if I would ever use these tools. I used the same phrase in 3 different blog search tools - Technorati, Google Blog Search, and BlogPulse. I started with basic search in all 3 tools. They all picked up the most recent blogs, but were sorted differently. The Google Blog search found blogs basic search default seemed to be by "exact phrase" wheras the Technorati and BlogPulse tools picked up words within the phrase. It seems that the Google Blog search would be most relevant to me if I was looking for a blog about something very specific. The Google Blog search also picked up titles of blogs that had the exact phrase, but the other two were finding the words within the post.
Now, each of the tools offer "advanced searches," so you could eventually find what you wanted by changing the relevance or date. All of them offer an "ALL of the words" and "the EXACT phrase" search in the advanced search option. Some of the other available search features include a "Tag Search" in Technorati and a "With these words in the blog title/post" search option in Google Blog Search.
After entering my search phrase in each tool and getting my results, I clicked on a few blogs. I was mostly not interested in any of them since I just randomly chose a phrase, but I it was definitely an experience to see what people around the world are blogging about and how they all seem to have time to do it!!!
Now, each of the tools offer "advanced searches," so you could eventually find what you wanted by changing the relevance or date. All of them offer an "ALL of the words" and "the EXACT phrase" search in the advanced search option. Some of the other available search features include a "Tag Search" in Technorati and a "With these words in the blog title/post" search option in Google Blog Search.
After entering my search phrase in each tool and getting my results, I clicked on a few blogs. I was mostly not interested in any of them since I just randomly chose a phrase, but I it was definitely an experience to see what people around the world are blogging about and how they all seem to have time to do it!!!
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Thing 2 - Which Web 2.0 tools do I hope to use?
Thing 2 - What are you looking forward to in 23 Things @ NEFLIN?
Personally - Photosharing (flickr) and social networking (Facebook/MySpace). I've been hounded long enough about "getting on" Facebook or MySpace or SOMETHING. I feel like I just don't have the time - definitely not at home with an 18-month old. I am also afraid of getting "addicted" to it. Sometimes it's hard to pull myself away from the great treasures of the internet! I finally got an iPod for Christmas this year. Again, it was one of those things that I said I would never have any time for. When I finally took it out of the box almost a month later (mind you, I would have LOVED this kind of thing 10 years ago when I loved music and had plenty o' time on my hands) I played with it on iTunes from 10:00 at night until almost 2am! This could be a problem - I need my precious sleep!! Anyway, I'm feeling left out by not keeping in touch with family and friends, sharing photos/videos with everyone, and keeping up with technology. So, I guess there will be no excuse when Things 5 & 18 come around!!
Professionally - I have never posted a video on YouTube, but have checked out many others there. I was thrilled when a team of librarians from our university created tutorial videos for each of the libraries on campus. Each video gave a tour of the specific library and the resources available to patrons. They should be very useful for our students. I can see how more videos could be created in the future for a variety of uses in our libraries! I am also looking forward to exploring Florida Electronic Library. It seems that there are many helpful resources consolidated into 1 place and I would like to use it as a reference tool especially during Ask A Librarian shifts.
So, bring on the Things!
Personally - Photosharing (flickr) and social networking (Facebook/MySpace). I've been hounded long enough about "getting on" Facebook or MySpace or SOMETHING. I feel like I just don't have the time - definitely not at home with an 18-month old. I am also afraid of getting "addicted" to it. Sometimes it's hard to pull myself away from the great treasures of the internet! I finally got an iPod for Christmas this year. Again, it was one of those things that I said I would never have any time for. When I finally took it out of the box almost a month later (mind you, I would have LOVED this kind of thing 10 years ago when I loved music and had plenty o' time on my hands) I played with it on iTunes from 10:00 at night until almost 2am! This could be a problem - I need my precious sleep!! Anyway, I'm feeling left out by not keeping in touch with family and friends, sharing photos/videos with everyone, and keeping up with technology. So, I guess there will be no excuse when Things 5 & 18 come around!!
Professionally - I have never posted a video on YouTube, but have checked out many others there. I was thrilled when a team of librarians from our university created tutorial videos for each of the libraries on campus. Each video gave a tour of the specific library and the resources available to patrons. They should be very useful for our students. I can see how more videos could be created in the future for a variety of uses in our libraries! I am also looking forward to exploring Florida Electronic Library. It seems that there are many helpful resources consolidated into 1 place and I would like to use it as a reference tool especially during Ask A Librarian shifts.
So, bring on the Things!
Monday, January 12, 2009
Thing 1 - My First Blog
Well, I guess blogging couldn't be any easier! It is simple to create one on blogger.com! Now I hope I have time to update it and work on the settings and layout! We use several blogs here at the university and it's a great way to keep employees up-to-date on what's going on around the libraries on campus.
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