thing 4

thing 4 was all about RSS feeds.

i explored how i could use RSS feeds in my personal life and tried to understand how i could show patrons how these feeds could be used in their lives. i think the technology is really interesting, but i had to rack my brain to figure out for what sites i could possibly want an RSS feed.

i tried to think about the sites i check daily or weekly. when i have time, i tend to scan the news headlines, look at stores' circulars to check for sales, and look for updates on my sister's blog or friends' flickr pages. i also follow a few blogs on subjects that interest me. so i found a CNN, Politico, and Pop Candy feed. i tried for a Publix and Target feed, but they mail the circulars to your email...so what's the point? i also signed up for the new releases from Netflix...which was overwhelming, plus, they have a new releases page on their site. the cool thing about this feed was that the videos could then be put on my queue right from my reader, rather than having to leave the site.

overall, i find my Google Reader annoying. it reminds me of how much i still have to do, and makes me feel like i have yet another task to accomplish. i finally end up marking all as read and closing the page. i do not have time to keep up with the updates that flood from news sites.

i only find this useful for checking into other blogs that rarely post, like my sister. i was overly zealous when signing up for librarian blogs and find the amount of new posts daunting. i would suggest starting slow with the feeds and only adding one at a time. too many feeds defeat the point.

i really think that RSS feeds would benefit patrons who want new releases from the library. if we could set up a feed for new items added to the catalog separated by format, we'd be rockin'. also, in my professional world, if updates to sites & specific pages to organizations like NEFLIN, TBLC, and SOLINET could be emailed to my address, it'd save me a lot of time.

for now, i do not see how this technology saves me time. i'd rather just go to each website at the point of need. however, the possibilities for this advancement are amazing.