RSS and this here blog thing

I'm going to tackle a couple topics in one post. Be amazed. RSS is a nifty little thing. Google Reader is my friend. It wasn't always, and I will not cop to how recently (or not) I started using it. But in much the same way Delicious allows access to your bookmarks from anywhere, something like Google Reader allows access to your favorite sites from anywhere. (I'm pretty sure we will one day soon simply buy computers built by whoever and they will run Google OS. They'll have Firefox as the default browser and then off you'll go doing just about everything you do now through Google. Although it will be interesting to see how third party developers will handle this. There are still a few apps that Google hasn't put online for you to mess around with. But some day. SOME DAY!)

Anyway, back at the ranch. Yes. Google Reader will allow you to subscribe to the feeds that all your favorite little websites provide. You can then browse the new content in one handy little location. I myself recommend the Google Reader widget for the personalized iGoogle homepage. It's Grrreat. (All apologies to Tony the Tiger...) I used to handle this through live bookmarks in Firefox. Which I still like, but Google Reader really does make quick browsing of things pretty handy. Plus the ability to star something for later is a must have.

As for locating feeds. Well, this is where you realize the net is vast and infinite. And boy howdy is there a lot of crap out there. Places like Technorati will let you find things that they keep tabs on, but using them today was a little on the frustrating side as they seemed to be having some issues. Google Reader itself allows you to search for things and even recommends things based on what you've subscribed to. How Amazon of them. It was rather nice to use though. And there are a handful of other things. Personally I rather like the little Google Reader bookmarklet that simply allows you to subscribe to something from the site itself while you're there.

And again, of what use might this be to the library? Well. Libraries could certainly create some feeds. You could have the new book feed, possibly a book review feed. If the Library has a blog, it most likely has a feed that can be subscribed to. It's another way for patrons to keep tabs on things and see what's going on. The nice thing about this, is it's a way to push content to your patrons. Once you've made them aware of it, they can choose to participate or not. But if they subscribe to a feed, they can be automatically notified about a variety of things. So. Content. Yes, have some.