#8 - RSS!

Apparently I'm one of the few was already using this? Everyone I've talked to says they haven't before, so I guess I'll be helping some people this week (if they can pull me out of the book mines). Anyway, I'm glad everyone else is learning now, because it really is the most convenient thing ever. I must admit, I myself have only been using RSS feeds for a few months, but I'm already quite addicted. The feeds I subscribe to vary from comics, to library blogs, to news, to generally interesting articles of the day, to things that I really could not explain, except to say 'they're funny'. But I'd probably never read them without RSS, because who wants to go look at two dozen websites, every single day, just to see if they updated or not? With RSS, if the site updates, it comes right to you.

I've been using GoogleReader to read mine, because I use gmail and a Google personalized homepage, but for the sake of this exercise I opened a bloglines account and I think I'll test it out for a few weeks to see if it is better or worse than GoogleReader. Conclusion so far - they both seem equally good for my purposes. I was able to import all the feeds I read (22) at Google into my bloglines account pretty easily. Both sites had an easy to find 'import/export' area, so I was able to save a file over at Google and then upload it at bloglines. My feeds all appeared, still in their obsessive little categories. I then went ahead and added a bunch of my coworkers blogs, to their own special category.

As for how the library can use these things...I'll have to think about it. I see we already have a feed for news, which is a good idea. Making one for new books and DVDs may be a bit much, and would anyone read it? (Well, I don't know, I'd definitely read the DVD one. I need to know which DVDs to go put on hold before everyone else finds out about them and the hold list is 30 people long.) But as for, would anyone else use it...I don't know. Probably not, at least not now...but when RSS really catches on and more people start to use it, I think they would.

And if anyone cares, here's the link to the feeds I read.