Okay, so here are some thoughts regarding Thing 2 of the 10 Things @ SPL. I started taking advantage of RSS feeds a couple of years ago and, not to sound overly dramatic, I can’t imagine my life without them now! At first, I used Apple’s Safari web browser and its built-in RSS reader. Then I switched over to Bloglines because I wanted something accessible from any computer. That worked well for awhile, but I soon switched over to Google Reader because I find it easier to use and nicer to look at. I like that GR only marks items as “read” when you actually scroll past it and I especially like the fact that I can share recommended blog entries on my own blog’s sidebar. Bloglines has a beta version that looks really good, but for now I’m happy with GR.
If you have your own blog and want to share stuff that you’re reading via GR (see the “Recently Read Online” section to the right), here’s how to do it:
- Login to Google Reader and start looking at your feeds
- If you see a feed you’d like to share with others, click on “share” at the bottom of that entry. It should change to “unshare” when you click on it and the icon should turn orange. Do this for however many entries you want. Whatever you mark “shared” will instantly be added to your shared items list.
- Next, click on “Shared Items” on the upper left hand menu. Some information about your shared items should pop up on the larger window panel now.
- Find where it says, “Put a clip on your site or blog” and click on the link to get instructions.
- From here it should be pretty easy. If you use Blogger, just click on the “Add to blogger” button and complete the instructions. If you use WordPress, copy and paste the html snippet into a text sidebar widget and it should work.
I mostly subscribe to library-related blogs, but I also subscribe to some other stuff. Here are some non-library-related sites I subscribe to:
- Seth’s Blog
- Presentation Zen
- Church of the Customer
- Lifehacker
- In the Company of Glenn
- Craig’s Movie Blog
- Full Court Press
As for the use of rss feeds in libraries, I’m all for it. I love what Hennepin and Denver (the two examples from Thing 2) have done with rss feeds and I’m excited that SPL is on its way to offering similar feeds. If I were a regular library patron, I would subscribe to feeds for my library’s events and programs, technology-related classes, staff recommendations for movies and books, and my account info (materials that are overdue, will be due soon, or hold requests that are in for me).
So which sites are you subscribing to? What are your favorite, must-read subscriptions?