Thing 30: More Ways to Use RSS and Delicious

It was fun to look at my Google Reader and try out some new feeds. I don't have too many feeds left because if there were any that I was any feed I was really backed up on; I just dropped so I feel like filtering tools can be a great help especially if you are interested in reading blogs but only want to read the postings that interest you. I also looked at Traffic RSS feeds and added on from Denver with is where I am moving to. So, that will be fun to use when I live there. Finally, I looked at Spreed which was a really fun way to gain the news but I don't think I will be using it on a regular basis. Though I would like to be a speed reader even though I don't think that will happen. So, finally, I feel there is a lot out there to read and listen to; but only do as much as your able. Like me; some of these feed are fun to look at but a drag when I have to do use it every day.

Thing 23: End

I found 23 Things to be a lot of fun. There were many things that I learned and a lot that I learned more about. The greatest thing that I learned was about RSS; what it is and how to use it. Also, I really liked being able to look and talk to other librarians and my colleagues about 23 Things. It was fun to read their blog and it was great to be able to vent my frustration to then when something didn't work. Like Thing 9 which wasn't easy as the title said "These Web 2.0 tools make it easy to collaborate on documents and presentations without the hassles of email attachments." There was more hassles using these tools then email; so that step really didn't showcase these tools in a good light. In all I found 23 Things to be a great program and I am very happy that I did it. It was really interesting to learn about different Library 2.0 things. This program really gives a good overview of different programs that patrons might find helpful and give a good overview of how these programs work.

Thing 19: Podcast

I looked at several different podcasting web sites. The one I chose to use was podcast.com; mainly because it was easy to use and easy to set up the RSS feed. I did look at local podcasting web sites; however most of the podcasts you had to listen to right there while the RSS feed really gives you more options. The first podcast I listened a little to was called Amateur Traveler Podcast: Travel for the love of it. I listened to the newest podcast which was about Walt Disney World. It was an interesting podcast but it lasted about 30 minutes long so I didn't listen to the whole thing. The next and final podcast I listened to was The Library Channel which was from a College Library in Arizona. It was about their Helpdesk and IT people and I didn't listen to a lot of it because again it was about 30 minutes long. I looked at some other library podcasts and most of them were about the events or activities that were happening in their library. In all, there is a lot of podcasts out there to listen to and no wonder if it is as easy as using G Cast were you use the phone to record our podcast then can mix in music then finally publish your very own podcast. So, virtually any library could create there own podcast. I just don't know if anyone would listen to it because as interesting as they are I don't find them interesting enough to waste 30 minutes of my time on them.

Thing 17: ELM

Learning more about Electronic Library for Minnesota or ELM is a great thing. The only problem is that I had to go through the ELM Portal. I looked at several of ELM items. I looked at InfoTrac which didn't have many instructions and was therefore very confusing. Many people made comments about this thing so I will not go into more detail. So, after a time I was able to add my search as a RSS feed onto my Google Reader. So, if I was doing research for a paper this would be a nice way to draw out the research and help me find up to date information. So, for students this could be a very helpful tool; however I was only about to access this through to ELM Portal and not through are own link to InfoTrac so I don't know how easily student will be able to access this within our library. The other thing I will talk about is my web page I made within EBSCO. I made it on April 1 so there is a little April Fools going on within my web page. I really didn't know what the point of making the web page was unless other people can look at your web page; however in reality it is not a viable source within a paper.

Thing 3: RSS

Of all the things, that I have learned, and just let me remind you I am on thing 3 and so far all the things beside thing 2 have been really interesting; however RSS feeds has been the most interesting and exciting Thing so far. I feel like I have finally learned something that I can implement throughout my life. The hardest part being finding all the RSS feeds I want to add and realizing that there has to be a limit to how much I can or should want to add, because really I can only read so much a day. However, besides all that I found setting up an aggregator to be relatively easy. I set up an aggregator through Google Reader, which I was happy that I did, as I was already familiar with how Google is set up. Meaning that I have used Google calendar extensively and because my blog is also through Google I thought in the end that it would be easier having all these items in the same location so to speak.

What I love about Google Reader, which is really strong words for a program that I only learned about yesterday, is that right away it asked showed me different bundles of RSS feeds that I could belong to. For example, they have the bundle called FUN, which included You Tube Most Viewed, Quotes of the Day, The Onion, and three others. And even thought I deleted the rest of what was in that bundle including You Tube because all the main videos were of a guy being slashed by another skater during a hockey game and if that is the kind of videos You Tube viewers like then I don't think I want to know what they like every day. However, I am getting off topic Google also had different bundles like News and Sports, which again I did not subscribe to but liked that I had the chance to. Also, the next RSS feed it tried to get me to subscribe to was The Form which I thought was really cool and then I wondered how they knew I wanted to subscribe to The Form; oh well. Adding different blogs was made easy and finally making my Google Reader all neat and organized by putting them into subfolders made me realize that Google Reader Rocks and that I need to find a lot more RSS feeds.