RSS

This week I have been exploring the world of RSS feeds. I already have a Bloglines account with a variety of feeds but have eagerly added more this week. I found LibraryBytes a good professional development feed to add due to the fact that it not only contained relevant information but was also presented in an interesting style. I am also enjoying receiving the 'photo of the day' and have subscribed to some interesting food/cooking blogs.



RSS feeds are such a easy way to keep up with trends in the industry as well as with outside interests. As it's all in the one place it saves so much time and can be something to look forward to checking in the work day. RSS feeds could have many applications for library staff. For example with my job researching I use RSS feeds from different databases to alert me to when an new article is available on a certain topic Eg. the poetry of Emily Dickinson. Collection services staff could use RSS to alert them to new publications and catalogues from suppliers. I'm sure there are many more ideas for this technology.

Wiki's

I quite often read wikipedia and can often become distracted by it as there is so much fascinating information available so quickly. I had never really seen many other wiki's though so I found this weeks 'discover' activity interesting. Seeing how wiki's can be used in a variety of ways was an eye opener. The first wiki I visited was the BookLoversWiki done by Princeton Public Library. I thought this was a great idea for a public library having clients review books and providing a link to the catalogue - I see they are now attaching reviews to the catalogue which is also a good idea. I was also intrigued by 'wookieepedia' so had a look at that. I think this would be a great place for Star Wars fans however as I know nothing about the films I found it a little hard to follow, it is a good example of a wiki for a niche audience.

In terms of applications for the library I think wiki's could work well internally for working on group projects especially as we are a large organisation. I also think it could be useful for certain client groups such as professional researchers to share resources with each other and librarians could contribute to this as well. A wiki could also be set up for client groups and edited by library staff only. I thought the SJCPL subject guides provided a good example of how we could do this.