RSS feeds

Our week 4 assignment was to explore RSS feeds, open a Bloglines account, subscribe to some feeds and then blog about our experience. I enjoyed subscribing to a few feeds (8)--probably more than I should have chosen, but I can weed those down and choose new ones as time goes on.

I liked looking at the Bloglines 200 most popular feeds--although the list was too long to preview more than a few in one sitting. I thought having the ability to preview them, without subscribing, was a nice feature, too. I think having all these feeds come to one site is nice and would be a good way to keep up on various topics.

I think if a person remembers to keep-up with checking their Bloglines account, it could be a very handy and enjoyable tool. I am sure it can become quite bogged down if you are more lazy/too busy to keep up with it. It could become like some of the old listservs like pubyac that would fill up your inbox with a zillion msgs. if you didn't check or delete them on a regular basis.

For my personal life RSS feeds will be nice to find new quotes, learn a word of the day, keep up with new gadgets or just get a laugh from the daily Dilbert comic strip. Professionally I see using RSS feeds to keep up with authors, book reviews, interesting websites, etc.

I think libraries having the option of an RSS subscription for patrons will become more prevelant as more patron become aware of and are comfortable using it. The library can use an RSS to announce upcoming events, do staff book reviews, or publish Bib.lists on various topics or genres etc.