Imagine How Thrilled I Am...

...to do more with audio (podcasts) and RSS!

I did say that I'm not much of an audio person, right? I'd rather read than listen. Takes less time and I can skim if I'm getting bored. So the radio style podcasts simply make me want to read their scripts and not bother with all the downloading etc etc. What a fussy little twerp I am.

But what joy to realize that I can get the audio I don't want via the RSS I think is useless! Wow. I did add one podcast (Book Bites for Kids) to my Bloglines page, but I don't expect to use it much.

Of the three websites listed for locating podcasts, podcast.net wouldn't load and Yahoo podcasts brought up too many random results, but podcastalley.com had a useful search engine which allowed me to easily see information about each podcast and find out how often they podcast; I would use them again.

For people who like to learn by listening, I think podcasts are great. They could be a valuable library service for their patrons. I can envision podcasts on how to use the library, book talks, library news, and lots more.

Just make sure there's still printed material for visual folks like me.

Delicious Tags

Now here's something that looks useful. I can see the handiness of having my bookmarks being accessible from home, work, or anywhere. I also like being able to follow the network of tags and bookmarks to find other sites that might be interesting to me.

For research assistance, del.icio.us could be used with caution. After all, it doesn't rank bookmarks by accuracy. On the other hand, descriptions of the sites might give one an idea of the content and how reliable it was. And going to the most popular bookmarks for a subject could be useful, too.

I just don't think I'll be using the RSS feature! ;)

More RSSssszzzzz...

Okay, I think I've figured out how to edit the feeds so they display the whole entry. And I can see that you wouldn't necessarily want to do that for all of them (eg. news feeds where you only want to read headlines).

I find it easiest to locate feeds by going to my favorite sites. I tried Google Blogger Search and Technorati and they just seem to bring up a lot of stuff that's not what I'm looking for.

I'm really not sure how a library would use RSS. It seems like something that's useful to individuals. Let's see if I can find something about that.

Hmmm. I just Googled "RSS use in libraries" and found this PDF entitled Libraries and RSS. Apparently some libraries are using providing RSS feeds to alert patrons to new aquisitions, changes in hours, events, etc. Okay, that could be useful.

RSS huh?

I am a bit offput by the whole RSS thing, although perhaps that's just because it's all new to me. But...

1) Why not just use bookmarks?

2) I have just discovered that when I check a feed on Bloglines, it then disappears. If I want to look at it again, it isn't there. Does that mean that this whole RSS thing is really just for folks who want to check headlines? Who only want to read things once? What if I want to check on headlines, then go back and read more in depth later? Then I have to use my bookmark. Why not just use bookmarks?

3) Some of my feeds display photos and the whole posts. Some have only headlines and the first few lines. I like the first type (but see #2). The ones with just headlines and a few lines seem really useless. Am I doing something wrong or is it just the feeds? And why not just use bookmarks?

4) I find it amazing that some folks are checking 200 feeds a day. And I thought I had trouble managing time at the computer! But still...why not have 200 bookmarks, nicely organized?

I see that the next step in Discover 2.0 is also about RSS. Perhaps as I get more used to using it, it will seem more useful to me. Hah. Perhaps.