Thursday, October 25, 2007

Thingy 2: Feed the Alligator

Yes, yes, I know it's a feed aggregator, but alligator is much more fun.

Thus far, the Skokie 10 Things are proving a sort of Rorschach test that surfaces my innate cynicism about many things Web-related. In this instance, a program that collates new information from various websites seemed uninteresting to me because... well... I don't typically find many websites interesting or helpful. Online, I tend to check my email and then that's pretty much it.

But once again, pondering applications of RSS beyond personal use opens up new possibilities, not only of transcending my solipsism but also recognizing how these alligators might prove helpful for libraries. I particularly like the idea of RSS feeds that advertise new materials that the library procures. In this way, a patron could subscribe to a feed that feeds their particular interests: whether new movies, mystery books, philosophy texts, or what have you.

And even the Web-adverse me managed to find five feeds to subscribe to--among these are the newspaper from my hometown (so as to keep up with all the excitement of Grand Rapids, MI, and have something to talk to my mother about!), a feed from Amnesty International to remind me of the derogations of life that unfortunatley abound, and the personal blog of a rather prolific friend of mine whom I'm terrible at keeping up with. So, perhaps--just perhaps--all of this will increase my use and thus estimation of that most famous invention of Al Gore's: the internet.

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Thingy 1

All this talk of "Thing 1" and "Thing 2" seems rather Seussical to me...

Well, the "Thing 1" module of the Skokie Public Library's self-guided learning program (of which this blog is parcel) was muy facil to navigate. Props to "the Team."

Frankly, I am sensing a shift in my opinion of blogs. Perhaps owing to an inchoate Luddite nature, I had largely avoided them, typically finding them dull or unreliable. And I certainly do not consider my life to be sufficiently interesting to warrant such preservation, even in such an ephemeral medium.

But this module introduced me to the idea of a blog as simply a kind of easily-updated website. Brilliant! And if a group of people or an organization is running the blog, well then that dissipates the narcissism at least, eh? Seriously, I can see how this would be a useful tool for cooperatively keeping up-to-date information handy for the audience "out there." I doubt a library security blog would be terribly interesting, though further applications may come to me as I let it percolate.