Week 4: Feedback

I'm finally getting around to the Week 4 exercises and discovered that there were already some interesting comments left on my blog. That was a pleasant surprise.

I have been using our website/blog at the Menasha Public Libray to promote our fall concert series both before and after the events. I've been posting photos and video to draw attention to the events and hopefully to interest people in upcoming concerts. Comments are enabled, but I haven't actively solicited them, so I just went back and edited my last post and invited people to comment on our concert series. If anybody has any suggestions, please let me know!

Bloglines vs. Google Reader

Since I'm already a regular user of Google Reader I thought that I would take a look at the feeds that I already subscribe to in Bloglines. The first thing I noticed was an import/export feature in Google Reader that saved me from manually resubscribing in Bloglines. Very handy! Almost immediately, I discovered a significant difference between the two services. In Google Reader I can click on a feed and it leaves the individual posts unread until I've clicked on them. Bloglines, however, marks all of the posts as read the moment I open the feed. I do see that there's a "keep new" function, but I often have several posts waiting for me (Project Play is not the only thing I'm behind on!) and it's just easier for me if they are left unread until I select them. Of course, it's entirely possible that there is a setting to change this and I just haven't found it yet! For now, I'm sticking with Google Reader.

Better Late Than Never (?)

I'm finally catching up with Week 2 and posting my first blog entry! I have limited experience contributing to blogs in my new position at the Menasha Public Library (www.menashalibrary.org). The front page of our website is blog-based and I contribute both as myself and through the Reference account.

I have recently started reading blogs as a substitute for various library-related lists, which were clogging my inbox with a lot messages that weren't all that substantive. Instead, I use Google Reader to stay up-to-date on issues and innovations in libraryland. Here are a couple of the blogs I have found so far:

http://www.lisnews.com/ - General library news blog.

http://www.nonanon.com/ - Interesting commentary on nonfiction titles from a staffperson at the Madison Public Library.

http://newcybrary.blogspot.com/ - Blog maintained by the director at the Appleton Public Library.