Shush 2.0

Throughout the course of the class / 23 Things, I’ve used both Netvibes and Google Reader as an RSS aggregator. I liked Netvibes, but it got a little messy. When I created an iGoogle portal for myself, I decided to try using Google Reader for a while. I like the linear structure of Google and I find it’s easier to subscribe to feeds. I’ll probably try BlogLines too. I’m also planning to explore the public sides of the aggregators.

I think RSS is valuable for librarians to keep current by subscribing to feeds by others. I’ve subscribed to several library bloggers’ feeds as well as those of my classmates. I’ve learned about a lot of issues I would have otherwise missed. RSS can also be a great resource for librarians to create feeds that can be subscribed to by others. Libraries could produce feeds for everything from podcasts to new acquisitions. Patrons could subscribe to these feeds, or the libraries could use them to push the information to the users where they use it–for example, a library could work with an academic department to create a feed of new acquisitions in a specific subject area could populate an area on a departmental web or course site.