Spring Break!! I'm glad I have a little time to catch up because Thing #9, "Finding Feeds" can be time consuming. I find myself wandering to all sorts of places, then spending lots of time editing my Bloglines feeds.
My first exploration was with Topix. I think I only skimmed the surface of this vast tool. I really like the site map, which breaks down all of the news feeds by category. I added a few on subjects I like to follow. Then I also created a feed for the search phrase "Ocean County Library". This site seems like is could replace the Yahoo and Google News Alerts that send emails with links to recent articles on keywords that the users choose to your Inbox. I'll keep both for a while and see which method of delivery I like better.
Then I tried the Bloglines Feed Search. Way, way cool! Via Bloglines, I subscribed to another Topix feed that hadn't been on their Site Map, and I found a Library Journal news feed. I searched the feeds with the phrase "Ocean County Library" and discovered that OCL's Going Green Committee has started a blog. Just typing the word "Library" in the Feeds Search got me over 39,000 hits. I wonder if that means that a lot of librarians out there are blogging like mad? Wow, Bloglines also tells you how many subscribers each feed has so you can see which are the most popular. I could spend all day browsing through these feeds.
The bottom line, to me, is that there are an endless number of feeds out there, depending on where your interests lie. Used wisely, feeds can be a great way to sculpt your blog reading habits according to your interests. But the vastness of the blogosphere and its seeming ability to endlessly expand mean there is not enough time to explore all of its delights!
I hope this post fulfills the requirements of Thing #9.
1 comment:
I love it that you found a blog for the OCL Going Green committee as part of this Thing! And you're right, there are a TON of librarians blogging; it's a really interesting way librarians are all finding out what we're all doing these days.
And once you start exploring the more hobby-related blogs (crafts, sports, cooking...) it's crazy how many are out there.
--elizabeth/oclwebthings
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