Thing 4: RSS and Newsreaders

I do know and actually use RSS feeds and aggregators. I thought the Common Craft podcast “RSS in Plain English” was excellent. I have used Google Reader so I decided to set up a Bloglines to compare the two. Both are simple to use and the only trouble I had with Bloglines was remembering my account passwords, etc to set it up. That is becoming more of an issue and I need to get more organized and simplified as I sign up for more of these things. I put a Blogline extension (notifier) for Firefox on my browser but I’m not sure why. I also put a Blogline button on my bookmark toolbar. After adding library blogs (different ones) to both and putting them in folders, I stopped (this was Friday). Today I went back to see if there were any major differences in presentation, organization or functionality between Google Reader and Bloglines. Both are quite user friends but I find Google Reader more intuitive for me. That’s probably because it looks like Google and that’s become a comfort. Although Google Reader did get a facelift last month that improved its look and functionality

I looked at some of the suggested “interesting reading” list and have added a couple to my blog list. Speaking of blog lists—I did create one on my blog at the beginning and if you’re really using your blog that tool is just as handy as an outside aggregator.

If you use these tools for your professional reading, you really have little excuse not to stay up-to-date. Pick 3 or 4 major library news sources and/or blogs in your field and it saves you reading 5 month old journals.

As with many others, this is truly addictive….