#9 Finding Feeds

Wow. This was a lot trickier than I thought it would be. I went to all four tools listed at 23 Things: Feedster, Topix.net, Syndic8.com and Technorati. I did not find any of them very user friendly. There seems to be quite a bit of assumption on the part of the creators in terms of how much they feel their users already know. I didn't find any of them intuitive or user friendly, and I consider myself to be fairly tech savvy.

This is a good lesson for libraries. Just because someone can push a few buttons on the OPAC does not mean they know exactly how to use the catalog or what to do with the information that they find there. This is a fine line to walk since we don't want to assume patrons know nothing and risk appearing condescending, but we must not assume they know everything about our sources no matter how technically literate they seem.

I resorted to some more "primitive" methods of Internet searching, namely Google, previously bookmarked library-related sites and links to other sites from library sites to add to my RSS feeds. I follow a few library blogs regularly. Shifted Librarian is not one of them. I think I am one of the only people in Library Land who just isn't over the moon in love with SL. Actually, one blog that I really like is from a classmate. Her site The Library Student is very relevant with storytime themes and ideas, children's book reviews and annotated book lists. I also added Library Stuff and Librarian.net. Good stuff, although that giant sucking sound keeps getting louder. . . .