Week 4, Thing #9

I love google's blog search! Whenever playing with a new search system, I like to put in two disparate things and see what comes up. So I searched "library bike" and checked out the results. Most of the blog searches found me lots of library blogs and lots of bike blogs, but few that brought the two together. Google found ME! Yes, this very blog was its first hit. I think this may have been due more to currency than relevancy. I had just finished that post a couple back in which I had written about bikes and libraries. But I must admit that I am amazed by Google's search logarithms which somehow always seem to find what I am seeking. Even when I am not so sure myself. So what if they read my e-mail to send me targeted adds? Surely "Do no evil" does not mean they should sacrifice potential revenue streams.

So now I have a bunch of rss subscriptions. Some comics, some columnists, School Library Journal's Breaking News, and education articles from the SF Chronicle and NY Times. And I find that, like my e-mail in box, I feel guilty if there are unread articles in my rss reader in-box. At the end of the day, I can toss my printed newspaper in the recycling bin, guilt free. But there is something about marking an article as "read" just so it won't show up that seems wrong. I mean, isn't that lying to say you read something when you really just skimmed the first two sentences? How high school! Of course, I could just ignore what I don't feel like reading. But the nagging guilt...

As far as finding feeds, I just thought about what I look at or search for regularly. Or what I would like to know about without going looking for it, like local education news. I skim the headlines in the print paper, but my rss does it for me now. The searches didn't find me anything that seemed worth reading regularly. I subscribed to a couple fellow CSLA bloggers, but those were folks I already knew in the real world.

My favorite thing about Google Reader: There is a button that says "manage friends" as if one click could manage Rebecca or Jess or.... Oh, but according to Google, I don't have any friends. Well!

Week 4, Thing #2, The Avatar

I teach my students that research is cyclical. I am finding that Library 2.0 is as well. Yes, I finished my avatar oh so many months ago. Or 2 weeks ago, according to the assignment order. But today my kids became enthralled with it. Then they wanted to make their own so they played around with the program. Then they wanted to look at other librarian avatars. (Yes, they are geeks in training.) So we took a tour of the SLL 2.0 blogroll and looked at lots of avatars. And they all look essentially alike. We are all so trim and wrinkle free. Honestly, the avatars do not look anything like us. I have been to our conferences. So I added my most recent school photo to my profile just to counteract the unrepresentative avatars amongst us. Let's show our true faces, warts and all.

Week 4, Thing #81/2, RSS Part 2

I have tried Bloglines. It is much easier to share. But I do prefer the layout of Google Reader. I like how it displays all of the feeds in a single in-box. Bloglines shows the folders, but you have to click on each one to open the folder, making it feel like I am opening bookmarks rather than receiving a feed. More pull, less push, technology-wise. So, I guess I prefer Google's passive consumption. If I am going to feed, just shove it down my throat.

I have also found, thanks to a X-Mas gift from Aunt Becky, that yes, I am smarter than a 5th grader.

Week 4, Thing #8, RSS

My old RSS feed was a fellow named Erik who sat in the co-pilot's seat of my library and routinely flopped around on the Internet occasionally turning his monitor toward me and saying, "you gotta read this!" Hence my regular blog reading paralleled his interests, more than my own. Yes, I like bikes, but he was a true bike snob. I like dogs, but he would spend hours ogling photos, saying "Wook at da cute widdle puppy." But he has moved on. Just a few days ago, he moved to Santa Cruz to further his education.

The most intimidating thing about this assignment was selecting my own interests without my sidekick. So, no bikesnob, no dogblog. Education. Libraries. Some humor and random stuff. I used Google Reader, which works fine for me. But I notice that I can't just publicly share my RSS feeds. I can only share particular items. So, I starred a bunch of items to be shared. But I wonder if bloglines is more fluid in its sharing abilities. I will go play with that. Until my kids demand my attention. For now, here is the link to my public Google Reader.