More about RSS

Hi there!

Well, I have learnt a few more things about RSS. Firstly, I played around a bit with Netvibes http://www.netvibes.com/ - and there is a lot of potential there to customise the page to suit your needs, with RSS feeds and widgets like Facebook and so on.

I can also tick off Things 7 and 8! The RSS feeds I am following are:

• Helen Highwater's Blah;
• Manoucha's blog;
• ABC news;
• SMH news headlines;
• Information literacy meets Web 2.0 blog.

I have also subscribed to Library Biz through my Outlook account.

I like that you can customise and organise your news items. You can create folders and be kept up to date without filling your email inbox with thousands of mail - that would take you a lot of time to sift through. Now there is a centralised location and you can visit whenever you want and read whatever you want.

In my personal life, tools like Net Vibes assists you to go to one place for Facebook, calendars, to dos and news and blog. It's a one stop shop for your organisation of information. In work, you can keep up to date with work related blogs and information, like web 2.0 blogs and information literacy ideas (as I have just subscribed to such a blog). Also, this is a great tool to share and train interested parties like students and staff in the use for their work related information. Then they won't get annoyed that the library keeps sending emails all the time, they can get information via the reader on issues related to them directly (eg. perhaps creating subject specific blogs people can subscribe to?)

Libraries can use RSS as mentioned, to inform clients on things and also to be kept up to date by following and subscribing to news and blogs that relate to our professional development.

That's all for now!

About RSS feeds

Hi there again.

I finally managed to create an RSS feed for ABC's Breaking Stories News feed. I couldn't see the three options Kate was talking about, but I copied and pasted the XML link into Add Subscription in Google Reader and that worked. I also managed to put the blogs and the news I'm following into folders.

I can see the potential in this as our clients can follow updates for the library. Now that I understand this better, I can probably show others how to set up their RSS feeds via a reader to keep up to date. They can also set up RSS for their favourite journal. Yay!

Google Docs - some thoughts

Google Docs is quite intuitive and a useful tool to use for collaborating on documents, presentations and reports. However, it does not handle big files well as I created a Presentation with photos from my holiday, and this kept making Internet Explorer crash all the time an attempt was made to open Google Docs. Firefox worked better, so I told my "collaborator" to open the presentation in Firefox as it kept crashing on her PC also.

I do, however like it as a free tool to share information and work on things like subject guides, reports, etc. Now that I have had training in Sharepoint, though, I prefer this option for collaborating with colleagues as you can "check out" a document, edit and "check in". Also in Sharepoint you can have dicussions, create a wiki and blog, share calendars and arrange meetings. It is a more blended approach to managing workflow and projects.

For students, Google Docs would be extremely useful. So many students do group work nowadays, that sharing their presentations and assignment this way is less confusing than 5 different versions of the same report going around. However, are students aware of Google Docs? If not, how can they be made aware of this option?

Flamenco is my passion

I dance flamenco in my spare time. In fact it has been 10 years now since I started. I have created a website for the school I dance at : http://www.pasionflamenco.com.au . Included is a Wordpress blog which I desperately need to update (time?) at http://pasionflamenco.wordpress.com/ .

Also, you will find YouTube videos and photos load onto Picasa on the website, but here are links anyway:

All about Wikis and Library 2.0

Wikis are great for collaborating on a range of topics. Why are they great?

• Library staff manual / procedures, such as the reference manual, circulation manual, etc. can be created and updated using a wiki. There is also history tracking through wikis. Other manuals can include how to use a database. The users cannot edit this but they can comment and staff will update.
• It is a free cheap alternative to intranets;
• Guides (eg. subject guides) can be created using wikis;
• Professional development wikis – a wiki of library related things (see Library Success wiki at www.libsuccess.org) ;
• Conferences – schedule of conferences, people attending can be incorporated into a wiki.
  
  Libraries can use wikis to promote internal communication (which remains up to date since anyone can add and edit content), provide a virtual space for group collaboration or create dynamic content for the user population.
  
  Libraries are also using wikis for subject / research guides, which used to be static web pages pointing researchers to appropriate information in a subject area. As these guides can become outdated quickly, they can be edited in a wiki when the need arises.
  
  The wiki contains such information as tough questions and research assignments that reference staff are presented with in semester. This information is readily accessible at the time of need. The wiki serves as a place to put answers to staff FAQs, and is a repository for department meeting minutes.
  
  See Ohio University’s BizWiki http://www.library.ohiou.edu/subjects/bizwiki/index.php/Main_Page. For business, it contains information about reference books, websites, research guides and how-to documents. Also visit http://msref.pbwiki.com/. The WikiMatrix (http://www.wikimatrix.org) allows users to select multiple wiki applications and compare them side by side. The Choice Wizard allows users to narrow down applications and software options based on selected criteria.