Thing #8--Really Simple? For the most part...yes!

Success! I have created a bloglines account. I have collected various RSS feeds and added them to my account. And should anyone care to view them, they can be found here! Some of the links are (1) work related, while others are (3) comics & graphic novels related, and still others are just (3) plain good snarky fun! (And no, I didn't add Sheldon or Unshelved--they're delivered daily to my email inbox, just where I like 'em. I need the occasional laugh whilst reading my email.)

This was an interesting assignment. I've used Google Reader on and off to track friends' blogs but had never really thought about using a reader in a work context. I'm thrilled to see that several of the websites I stalk regularly have RSS feeds. And disappointed to see that others...don't. I'm thinking this could be a great time-saver. One-stop shopping to see what's new in the world of graphic novels! (Hey, check it out--ICV2 says Elfquest is FINALLY being made into a movie!) I'm bad about remembering all the places I like to visit (I have a ginormous collection of bookmarks on delicious) so I appreciate having someone else (something else, anyway) scouting the lot for updates.

Adding the links was in some ways much easier than the tutorials made it sound and in others much more difficult. (I'm talking about you, Moscow-Pullman Daily News! What's with this separate feed for each and every section? Seriously, you're not that big of a paper.) If you haven't yet tried it for yourself, let me plug the "easy subscribe button." This little button is made of awesome. I dragged it to my browser (that's Mozilla Firefox, btw) and whenever I found a blog or site I wanted to follow, I just clicked on the button and bloglines went looking for the pertinent info. Much, much faster and easier than clicking on add and copying & pasting urls. I did run into a few snags where the button just couldn't determine there was a feed, even though I KNEW there was. So in those cases, I simply went scouting for the little orange wavy lines RSS icon. Click on that & it invariably gives you the correct url to paste into bloglines. Some sites (I'm talking about YOU, Neil Gaiman!) don't have the icon...but prefer to use the text "rss" somewhere on the page. The info's still there, you just have to go hunting for it.

Off the top of my head, I can think of two ways we might be able to incorporate RSS into SCLD. I'd love to see our daily calendar as an RSS feed for the public. "Want to know if anything's happening at the library today? Just check the feed! We'll tell you." We could even scope the feeds according to age/audience. We also tend to get questions along the lines of "What's brand new at the library?" Sure, you can browse the catalog by limiting it to the new adult area...but what if every new title added automatically sent out in a "New arrivals" feed? It wouldn't have to be a lot of info, just the author & title. I'm thinking we've got some customers who'd love this. We already do it the slow way via paper newsletter for our Outreach customers, and Pat S. puts together a lovely list of new picture books for storytimes for staff. Of course, I have no idea how feasible this is in terms of staff time and tech... possible, yes, feasible, maybe not so much.

I'm looking forward to playing more with RSS feeds and pondering how we might be making better use of them at the library.

PS--For the record, though I've used newsreaders and feedreaders over the last 8 years or so the very first time I ever encountered the term "aggregator" was in today's supplementary reading. I'm really hoping this one doesn't catch on.