Thing 4: RSS

Wow, these are very informative readings and now that I understand what RSS is I can hardly wait to start using it. I disliked the old subscription "feeds" all going to my email and clogging it up, interspersed with real email and spam. Just by reading I can see I will use RSS. I will have one RSS aggregater per subject (unless further reading and practice show me a way to subdivide better than my home email sending things to separate folders). That way when looking for a specific topic update, I can go directly to my specific reader for that topic. Yeah!!!!!

I could not get the YouTube RSS video to play (perhaps it was the slowness of my wireless link), so I will go back to that on another computer. Until then, I am going to start setting up my first RSS Aggregater!!!! more later.......

I got signed up with Google Reader and it automatically brought in the blogs I am following with this blog for 23 things. In doing so, my home reader page has a left sidebar that lists my folders and a right window (large) that shows the entries I have subscribed to. Very similar to my email set up. I'm going with it for now.

I subscribed to several new feeds using the feed search tool provided and organized the subscriptions into 3 separate folders: 23 Things(for the 8 blogs I follow automatically downloaded), Computer Tech (for my 2 C-Net feeds about tech news and tech reviews), and Library Feeds (for the several Library related news and blogs subscriptions). I will continue to play with my settings in hopes of setting it up so the list of subscriptions is larger maybe with icons that I can click on to open another window with only the selections within that folder for perusal. Hopefully I'll find something. I just don't like opening to a large junky window of information and perusing a smaller pane for navigating......

I did find a really cool feature, though: Google Reader has some topical feed bundled together so that you can subscribe to several in a topic all at once. Topics actually included Dr. Who!! (But not Star Trek, can you imagine.) There is a Geneology bundle, a Vegan bundle, lots of interesting topical bundles. if you haven't looked at this featrue check it out....

Although truthfully I will not be subscribing by bundle; being a road less traveled type of person I like making my own choices instead of taking the easy, already prepared way. I will, however, look at each individual feed winthin the topical bundles that interest me to see which if any of those feeds I might like to add.....I just want to know what I'm signing up for and want to be able to opt out of some of their choices

Thing 3: Talkdigger

Boy is this one a gold mine!!!! Platinum even :)

http://websearch.about.com/od/enginesanddirectories/a/talkdigger.htm

TalkDigger lets you enter a URL and then searches a variety of search engines to see what sites are linking to it. Sort like the database Web of Science allowing you to search for articles that cite a specific seed article of your choice.

I started out randomly putting in URLs like www.aclib.us; www.ufl.edu; www.utk.edu and got a few hits that were OK but not spectacular. But then, I put in as a seed URL www.arthurian-legend.com (an authoritative website I have used before) and got some great results. I found other authoritative websites that I was already aware of as well as some new ones. I also discovered some fun website discussion sites (not particularly authoritative, but interesting) as well as some art sites with great fantasy art related to the Arthurian Legend that I had completely missed until now.

TalkDigger and a good seed URL opens up worlds of on topic sites. I loved it!

Thing 3: other Blog Search Engines

I found a link (http://websearch.about.com/od/internetresearch/a/newsblog.htm) to some other blog search engines. One mentioned is Opinmind, which sounds really cool! It puts search results into two columns one green for pro and one blue for con. I really want to try this one out. However, I am having difficulties: I go to the site, but cannot find a search bar, search screen, search field, search page....

I am moving on to another search engine, but will come back to this one because it looks very interesting, if I can just figure out how to use it........

Maybe you have to join.....I just found a join button. If anybody figures this out, please let me know! I'm, feeling kind of dense........

Thing 3: Explore Technorati

So now I've read a lot about the Blogosphere and searching blogs. My biggest "worry" about blogs as sources is proving authoritative content. (From my reading/studying it doesn't look like I'm alone.)

I searched for "Arthurian Legend" because I fell in love with King Arthur around 4 years of age and every major research project (for which I could choose the topic) I have ever done in my life has centered around the Arthurian Legend in some way. So I looked at the results and the first thing I noticed about my search results in Technorati is that it lists an authority ranking.

I found two great blogs that I plan to continue visiting but they had authority rankings of 20 something. Even worse (I thought) the ones I rejected as not pertinent had authority rankings of 180 something.

Next step: explore Technorati's use of the term authority. Good news, the lower the authority ranking number the higher the authority of a particular blog. This means that the numbers correlate with my opinion (as far as I could gather one quickly). However, Technorati creates their authority ranking by using the number of other blogs that link to a rated blog within the last 6 months. So now I'm back to how authoritative can this be? Just because it's popular does that mean it's accurate?

At least Technorati does mention including source material in its discussion of authority ranking: "The best way to increase your Technorati Authority is to write things that are interesting to other bloggers so they'll link to you. Linking to source material when you blog is also a great way to engage in conversation and help others find what you find interesting." [Bold text my emphasis not Technorati's.]

So while I trust my judgement to find relevant and good discussion material on the Arthurian Legend in blogs, how do I know I'm getting good information on Asian Folklore concerning the Rabbit on the Moon? I read a story as a child about the Rabbit on the Moon, but have little recall of its content. I used this search term and got very few hits only one of which even mentioned the Asian Story. So no comparative data yet. I'll pick another topic I know little about and see what I can discover about my comfort in finding usable material.

more later........

Thing 2

Lots to cover in Thing 2:

I think of myself as a library 2.0 full speed ahead kind of person and am excited by all the possibilities out there. This comes naturally to me because when I was in Library School, ALA's Planning for Results (version 1.0) was one important topic. Library as a community commons was a big concept requiring us to rethink ourselves (like we are no longer the SHHHH! people anymore [within reason]; rock concerts in the library? etc.). Outreach to our communities became even more important and creating multi layered engagement between the library and its community a focus.

Well, our community is no longer the 5-15 miles surrounding our buildings -- it's our whole ever shrinking world! Which I think is wonderful!!!! I have a friend in New Zealand because we both play Runescape online. Web 2.0 applications are tools we can use to create engagement linking ourselves and our libraries with our world wide community.

What Web 2.0 tools do I already use? This brings me to another view I have of myself: as an oxymoron. Philosophically, I love web 2.0. My actual usage so far is minimal to reluctant (I'm sorry to admit). While I regularly use IMDB and other databases as well as play Runescape online, my attempts to use other applications like chat rooms, IM, etc were not successful. Partially because of bad luck: I tried lurking in a few chat rooms that I thought would be interesting only to find the foul language and attitudes disheartening. One was a chat room related to a popular ladies DIY magazine and another was a chat room related to a popular gardening magazine. I thought they would be safe first attempts. They weren't and I gave up on chat rooms. (I also found it difficult to distinguish who was talking to whom in these 2 chat rooms since more than one conversation was going on at a time. How do you follow a conversation when other partial conversations pop up in between conversation bites?)

My IM experience was actually OK because I was IMing family and they already know I can't spell and forgive me, even if they laugh at me. Before personal computers, I once wrote a letter to a friend about a horseback riding trip that I took. Unfortunately, I accidentally left the s out of one (and only one) of the times I wrote the word "horSeback riding." Still have not lived it down. Even though I appreciate the humor in the above incident, I am still quite neurotic about my spelling. This brings me to Ask-A-Librarian. I love the concept, I whole heartily believe that this is a great new service and the best thing since sliced bread. I am just not comfortable staffing the Ask-A-Librarian service desk. (This is where the embarrassing reluctance I mentioned above comes in.) I know that the people I have helped appreciated it because they have all without fail graciously thanked me for helping them. I just can't shake the fear (no matter how hard I practice) that I will eventually embarrass myself, my library district, and the whole Ask-A-Librarian project with my bad spelling. I feel unprofessional while using live chat features, because there is no spell check. I realize that the pressure is all inside me and not out there. I know that texting requires misspelling (often wondering if we are not returning to the days before Webster, before grammar, before "correct" spelling and sometimes feel that this might be going backwards and instead of forward). However I have no doubt that if I could just get with the program my spelling inadequacies would not necessarily hinder the flow of information. I know that I can do Ask-A -Librarian and I have successfully helped people while staffing Ask-A-Librarian; I just can't do it comfortably.

Blogging (with a spell checker) has been a complete joy and I am looking forward to more exciting applications to learn about, and share. I still love this 23 Things Program!!