Assignment #3 - RSS and Newsreaders

I've been reading RSS feeds for several years now and find them a useful way to keep up-to-date with trends in libraries and publishing. Some of my favourites are:

Quill and Quire at: http://www.quillandquire.com/blog/
Bookninja at: http://www.bookninja.com/
Library Link of the Day: http://www.tk421.net/librarylink/
Dewey Divas and Dudes: http://deweydivas.blogspot.com/
Library stuff: http://www.librarystuff.net/
Stephen's Lighthouse (Stephen Abrams): http://stephenslighthouse.com/

Some fun ones are:
Unshelved (library comic strip): http://www.unshelved.com/
Miss Information (a TPL employee with a dry sense of humour): http://miss-information.blogspot.com/
Cute Overload (not library-related, but good for your daily dose of cute animals): http://cuteoverload.com/

While useful, they are not perfect. The quality of the blog depends completely on the author. As in everthing, some are better than others. Most blogs have the occasional interesting piece of information, buried in a lot of other stuff. This can require a lot of scrolling.

When trying out a new blog, I usually subscribe to it for a few weeks to get a good idea what it is like, before deciding whether or not to keep the subscription. Luckily, it's easy to subscribe and unsubscribe.

Another problem is finding the time to read them - although I have the same problem with printed professional journals.

23 Things Assignment #2

Here are some photos of public libraries I visited during my trip to England last September:

Pimlico Library, London

Derby Central Library, Derbyshire

Cornforth Library, Durham

23 Things - Assignment #1

I already have some knowledge of several of the Web 2.0 technologies covered in 23 Things. However, this knowledge was gained by just playing around with them myself, often fairly unsuccessfully. By taking this 23 Things training, I'm hoping to fill in some of the gaps in my knowledge, learn a few new things and hopefully get a better idea of how these tools can be used by libraries to impove their communication with their patrons.