Category Archives: Study

Library RSS in action

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This is the second post in a series produced for studying purposes. Not quite what I post normally, but I imagine it will let you see a different side of me.

I’ve been a fan of RSS for quite some time. I’ve loaded up all of my news feeds into Google Reader and it’s the primary way that information is fed to me on the Internet. Although reports of the death of RSS at the hands of Twitter and Facebook are somewhat exaggerated, I’d like to think that I’m going to keep using Google Reader because I like to curate my own content. I do read links posted on Facebook and Twitter, but the vast majority of what I consume comes through Reader.

I have to admit, my use of RSS is quite vanilla. I load up a feed from a web site and leave it at that. So, for this post, I explored a couple of examples where the use of RSS is a little more dynamic.

The organisations formerly known as TAFE in Western Australia use a joint catalogue. That catalogue has a simple “New Books” function that lets you browse, well, new books (and, of course, new non-book resources). Once you’re looking at a particular list of new books, you can access an RSS feed that will deliver these books right to your browser.

How can this be handy to libraries to improve their services? Well, a “New books” feed would be great in letting people keep track of what their library has for them, without having to go into the library to visit the new books display. The RSS is also entirely automated, so Librarians won’t have to manually email out their new acquisitions.

Another nice use of RSS is a vanity feed. By using a service like Yahoo Pipes, you can grab a LOT of feeds and filter posts by keyword. This is particularly useful if you just want to find out what other people are saying about you or your organisation. Of course, you need a somewhat unique name to be able to pull this off – mine is an excellent example :-D

Vanity feeds can also be useful for libraries. Admittedly, this would mostly benefit larger libraries that actually do generate buzz on social media and/or websites. However, it could prove to be an invaluable source of feedback beyond the paper feedback form.

Social Networking for Information Professionals

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This is the first post in a series produced for studying purposes. Not quite what I post normally, but I imagine it will let you see a different side of me.

Some of you may already know that I’ve returned to study this year in order to upgrade my Graduate Diploma in Information and Library Studies to a Master of Information Studies. I’ll only have to do four units, so I’m going to grit my teeth and try to study two units per semester while working full-time.

One of the units I’m studying is called “Social Networking for Information Professionals”. This might come as a surprise, since I already use social networking sites quite heavily. In my defence, however, I don’t really do much in terms of social networking for work. Sure I use Twitter and LinkedIn, but that’s mostly for professional networking.

Everybody has their own way of defining social networking. For me it’s the use of websites for two-way communication between me, my friends and other contacts that I’ve collected on the various sites I use. These social networking sites encourage sharing your life and allowing others to comment or other forms of feedback. Most sites tend to have a particular focus like exercise for RunKeeper or travel for TripIt. For a list of the sites I use the most, head on over to the About page.

All things considered, what I’m hoping to learn from this unit is some innovative ways of using social networking to engage with clients. Social networking is easy when it’s for me, but there’s more things to consider when I’m doing it on behalf of a large organisation.