#9 Finding Feeds

I wanted to find blogs about "remote reference" or "chat reference" services.

I tried Blogline's search tool first. It was somewhat useful, yet I did not find it easy to search by subject rather than keyword...which meant it was difficult to target my search narrowly enough. Nonetheless, I did find these blogs and posts:

• QuestionPoint: 24/7 library services - QuestionPoint is the live chat software platform marketed by OCLC. It is one that Florida's Ask a Librarian has been considering as a replacement to its current software.
  
  I'd like to see JPL's chat team members start to explore this site, especially the Best Practices pages. Even though we are not using this software, the principles will be almost the same.


• Remote Reference Updates - I think this is an internal staff blog for Harris County Public Library in Texas. Again, worth exploring.

Next I tried Technorati Advanced Search. I like this a lot better. I didn't do a lot of searching, but it was more flexible and rich in search options than the Blogger one. I also know by reputation that Technorati has a huge database to search.

I only had time to find one blog, but it looks excellent, and I'm adding it to my Bloglines subscriptons:

• Tame the Web: Libraries, Technology and People - "Tame the Web (TTW) is a blog written by Michael Stephens. TTW deals with libraries, technology and people - and the fascinating intersection between all three. How do we use technology to further the library’s mission? How do we use technology to learn? What are innovative libraries and librarians doing to explore this realm?" (from the About page)
  
  My one complaint so far is that the right-hand navbar displays waaaaaaaay down the page, instead of right next to the top post.
  
  The post that caught my attention in the Technorati search was this one: Txt a Librarian.

Very interesting.

#8: RSS and Bloglines

I've actually been using Bloglines for about two years.

NEFLIN had a course in 2006 called "Social Software in Libraries," which introduced us to blogging, RSS and newsreaders, wikis, etc. That's when I first entered the "blogosphere."

I currently subscribe to about two dozen blogs: comics, political blogs, Quaker blogs, library blogs and others.

I just went through the process of marking each as either Public or Private, and I tried to create a blogroll on this blog, or at least to have a URL by which I could give access to my public Blogline's account.

Unfortunately, both methods show the titles of folders which have private subscriptions. I haven't found a way to block the folder names, so I'm not making any of this public for now.

I'll keep trying....

Mike