Thing #8

What do you like about RSS and newsreaders? I like the efficiency or the magic of the information I choose coming to me in one place rather than me having to go to many places to check on the information I want.

How do you think you might be able to use this technology in your school or personal life? I am intrigued by the “share” possibilities. The Librarian Philosopher’s “Library 2.0 news” RSS feeds shared contains more information about the Library 2.0 world than any one person could possible assimilate. At A Library By Any Other Name there is a great RSS feed shared about books, books, and more books called “Check Out Blog Posts About All Things Books!”. I could see each department chair finding the ten best blogs or news feeds or association feeds about their subject and put them into a reader for all the other teachers in that department to read in order to stay current in their fields. Maybe the other teachers make suggestions as to which feeds to add to the reader.

How can libraries use RSS or take advantage of this new technology? To extend the example above, the librarian could take all the shared feeds from the department chairs and post them on one blog or web page so that anyone interested in staying current in any subject could go to one page.