Thing 9: Explore MERLIN

I spent some time looking at MERLIN- looking at links, seeing which systems have a presence in the social space blog and twitter world, and reading about the components for training offered to library systems. It is full of potential, although it doesn't look as if many people are participating yet in the interactive discussions. I went to bloglines and used the blogline search tool to search for more feeds. I ended up adding MERLIN highlights of the month to my list of feeds through this search tool. I also adding Dilbert and the New York Times Book Review to my feeds from this resource. I followed a link and opened an account with Good Reads, which I remember spending some time on from a previous training, but I haven't yet created my list. I also looked at Topix.net, Syndic8.com and Technorati, getting the general gist of what they do, although without signing on there isn't too far to go. I was not able to get onto Feedster after several tries. I am told perhaps it is an Internet Explorer problem (it might work in Firefox, for instance), but since that is the browser I have to use I will just let it go. I tried a search for swine flu vaccine availability information- I'm ambivalent about whether the results I got were any better than Google searching, but you are assured that whatever comes up will have an RSS feed. A positive note: I have looked at my bloglines feeds five times this week, so it looks like something I may truly keep up with.

Thing 8 - RSS and a news reader

I spent way more time on this thing than the recommended time or the previous ones-- I think because I can see a personal use for this that I might actually keep up. I really wanted to understand what RSS can do, so I listened carefully to the podcast, paid close attention to the tutorial and set up a bloglines account at http://www.bloglines.com/myblogs and added two newsfeeds for regional news from out-of-town newspapers that I regularly look at and several weather feeds for my home an other areas that I regularly look at. Then I added a few of the suggested ones, the dictionary word-of-the day, a librarian's cartoon site and a PLA blog. Then I added a feed from the 23 things blog of a colleague who is progressing on the 23 things at about the same rate I am- then I added a feed for a specific tag in Flickr for a geographic area that I love. Since many of these are of personal interest to me, I expect I will keep up with them. I can see the utility professionally if you are following a specific issue in the library press, especially if you are on a task force studying a certain issue, but the real draw for me is the application to my personal life. The personal sites I added feeds to are for sites that I visit individually a lot anyway, so that does promise to be a timesaver for me. I would be wary of adding too many feeds for things I wouldn't normally already want to know about, because then I would be wading through too many extraneous things every day. I particularly value knowing now what the icon is- Before it was just one of the things I ignored because I didn't recognize it. Now it pops out at me everywhere. I would also add in this post the realization that there is no way I can do this training at work. As a part-time person without my own computer, it is just too time-consuming and too difficult to find extended time to concentrate without interruption. When I have attempted to do it at work, I find my understanding is not thorough and I feel rushed and sometimes discouraged. I am doing my posting and keeping up my log at work, but it is working much better to do the rest of the work at home. It's better for me, and I will know in the end I have more mastery, but there is something about the lack of time at work that doesn't feel right.