For those of you who couldn't attend the MCLD Library 2.0 program Thursday, it was very interesting.
Our speaker, Michael Stephens, is a library school professor and proponent of Library 2.0 technologies. He spoke about the OCLC perceptions report of libraries, the changing mission, purpose and role of libraries in our communities, and how we might be able to fulfill those roles using a variety of new technologies. He argues that the library should work to take back the role of being the center of social and cultural networking in our communities.His website Tame the Web: Libraries and Technology features two postings about our session in Phoenix and some of the feedback from the participants.
He certainly brings a different perspective than we've heard before, and his comment below has implications for the future of libraries (emphasis added was mine).
Talking about a Shift & Putting Up Barriers
Yesterday I spent four hours with 70 Arizona librarians at a workshop sponsored by the Maricopa County Library System. We talked Web 2.0, trends guiding technologies and the shift toward a collaborative and social networked society. It's apropo that while catching up on my edubloggers, I discover this quote posted by Will Richardson from the new book Wikinomics:
These changes, among others, are ushering us toward a world where knowledge, power, and productive capability will be more dispersed than at any time in our history—a world where value creation will be fast, fluid, and persistently disruptive. A world where only the connected will survive. A power shift is underway, and a tough new business rule is emerging: Harness the new collaboration or perish. Those who fail to grasp this will find themselves ever more isolated—cut off from the networks that are sharing, adapting, and updating knowledge to create value.
His session was thought provoking and it would be great to have him as a speaker for a wider group at our library at some point in the future.
Thanks to Marshall Shore and his vision in putting this workshop together and opening it to Valley librarians!
Showing posts with label tametheweb. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tametheweb. Show all posts
Saturday, December 16, 2006
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
RSS of your library account updates
If you use RSS feeds in a newsreader, you already know the value of inviting frequently updated information to come directly to your desktop. It's a way to save time while still keeping up with the tons of information we want to see each day. You save time by going only to one website--your own customized newsreader with your selected news ready to go whenever you are ready.
If you haven't used RSS feeds before here's a quick way to learn them. Let's use our own library card account information as an example. There are two parts to doing an RSS: Finding the info you want to receive and setting it up in your newsreader. Let's do the first part now.
Part A. Finding the information you want to receive
Step 1. On the library's website , login to your library card account using your library card number and last name (or if you have signed up for a username and password use that to get to your account). Choose the Check my Account option on the left under My Account.
Step 2. Underneath the "Library card account" and "Summary" features, you'll see an entry for "Items checked out". Find the red box that says "RSS Receive Courtesy notifications by RSS". Click on that.
Step 3. A new page will open up that has a description of the RSS under "About this feed" then a long page of computer instructions. Don't worry - you don't need to do anything with the content of this page, you only need the URL in the address bar. All you need to do is find the address bar and copy the URL of the page into your clipboard. Now that we've done that, hold on while we find our newsreader then we can set up the RSS feed.
Part B. Setting up an RSS feed in a newsreader
Step 1. Go to any free newsreader and register (one of the easiest is Newsgator) and create a free account. It's a lot like signing up for a free email account, very tedious but necessary. Be sure to write down your username and password (whatever you do, don't do what I do, which is to just use the same username and password that I use for my email or other easily remembered online accounts).
Step 2. Now we are ready to add the RSS feed from the library account to our newsreader. Each newsreader will have a way to add a feed and on Newsgator it's near the top left labeled "Add Feed". When you click on that you have 4 options for adding feeds: we want the one called "URL and Import".
Step 3. Enter the feed's URL. Here is where we paste the previously copied URL from our library account RSS page. Don't forget to move down to the second section of that page to enter your credentials. The RSS feed needs your library card number and last name to access and deliver this feed each day, so here is where you put that information. Newsgator calls them "Custom credentials" and has a space for username and password, so enter your library card and last name.
Step 4. Your new library courtesy notices will appear in your list of RSS feeds on the left side of your newsgator account. You can check your library information while you read any other newsfeeds you've signed up for. It's an easy way to stay on top of things by letting them come to you.
You are done! Now each day you'll receive the latest information about your holds, courtesy reminders, and overdue notices directly to your desktop.
If you are new to RSS you may want to add other RSS feeds. Here are a few of interest to library folks because they are mainstream library blogs that offer daily updates. With these feeds you either paste in the URL to your "Add feeds" section or go to this website and look for the RSS or XML buttons to find the URL.
The Shifted Librarian
Tame the Web: a Weblog by Michael Stephens
PW Daily News
And here are two that are just news (it makes sense for a newsreader to deliver news doesn't it?):
cnn.com
azcentral's RSS options are amazing
Let me know if this works for you. I hope it's an easy way to learn about a new feature of our website and help patrons with questions on RSS.
If you haven't used RSS feeds before here's a quick way to learn them. Let's use our own library card account information as an example. There are two parts to doing an RSS: Finding the info you want to receive and setting it up in your newsreader. Let's do the first part now.
Part A. Finding the information you want to receive
Step 1. On the library's website , login to your library card account using your library card number and last name (or if you have signed up for a username and password use that to get to your account). Choose the Check my Account option on the left under My Account.
Step 2. Underneath the "Library card account" and "Summary" features, you'll see an entry for "Items checked out". Find the red box that says "RSS Receive Courtesy notifications by RSS". Click on that.
Step 3. A new page will open up that has a description of the RSS under "About this feed" then a long page of computer instructions. Don't worry - you don't need to do anything with the content of this page, you only need the URL in the address bar. All you need to do is find the address bar and copy the URL of the page into your clipboard. Now that we've done that, hold on while we find our newsreader then we can set up the RSS feed.
Part B. Setting up an RSS feed in a newsreader
Step 1. Go to any free newsreader and register (one of the easiest is Newsgator) and create a free account. It's a lot like signing up for a free email account, very tedious but necessary. Be sure to write down your username and password (whatever you do, don't do what I do, which is to just use the same username and password that I use for my email or other easily remembered online accounts).
Step 2. Now we are ready to add the RSS feed from the library account to our newsreader. Each newsreader will have a way to add a feed and on Newsgator it's near the top left labeled "Add Feed". When you click on that you have 4 options for adding feeds: we want the one called "URL and Import".
Step 3. Enter the feed's URL. Here is where we paste the previously copied URL from our library account RSS page. Don't forget to move down to the second section of that page to enter your credentials. The RSS feed needs your library card number and last name to access and deliver this feed each day, so here is where you put that information. Newsgator calls them "Custom credentials" and has a space for username and password, so enter your library card and last name.
Step 4. Your new library courtesy notices will appear in your list of RSS feeds on the left side of your newsgator account. You can check your library information while you read any other newsfeeds you've signed up for. It's an easy way to stay on top of things by letting them come to you.
You are done! Now each day you'll receive the latest information about your holds, courtesy reminders, and overdue notices directly to your desktop.
If you are new to RSS you may want to add other RSS feeds. Here are a few of interest to library folks because they are mainstream library blogs that offer daily updates. With these feeds you either paste in the URL to your "Add feeds" section or go to this website and look for the RSS or XML buttons to find the URL.
The Shifted Librarian
Tame the Web: a Weblog by Michael Stephens
PW Daily News
And here are two that are just news (it makes sense for a newsreader to deliver news doesn't it?):
cnn.com
azcentral's RSS options are amazing
Let me know if this works for you. I hope it's an easy way to learn about a new feature of our website and help patrons with questions on RSS.
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Make blogs come to you: subscribe to them
Suppose you wanted to learn more about blogs.
You find a mention of one that interests you, for instance, Tame the Web: Libraries and Technology a Weblog by Michael Stephens. You go to the web page and read through a few posts. OK, so far not too hard. But there's info posted there almost everyday. What's the easiest way to keep up?
Make the info come to you. Yes, you can order up a subscription to that blog so that all new posts will be delivered to your desktop each time there is a new post. That process is usually called "subscribing to an RSS feed". RSS is a term that is usually described as Really Simple Syndication and it's a simple way to get that blog info delivered every day. The the trick is knowing how. Here's the secret below:
1. Sign up for a free account on a newsreader site like NewsGator.com. Look for the words "Create Account". It's a lot like signing up for a free email account. Very straightforward but tedious. Be sure to write down your username and password.
2. You may want to unselect any "starter packs" that are offered (unless you really want to receive a lot of blogs).
3. You'll be dumped into a new account and be able add a blog by using the "Add Feeds" button in the upper left of the screen. You'll get to a screen that says "There are two ways to find a feed". You'll want to click on the last tab above that. It will say "URL and IMPORT". You'll see an instruction that says "Step 1: Enter the Feed's URL". So here you copy the URL from the address bar of whatever blog you are looking at, for example http://www.tametheweb.com/. Then press "Add feed" and you're done!
4. Now when you go back into your newsreader by clicking on "Webreader" you'll see all the news from that blog.
5. You can add more blogs at any time, for example a science fiction fan's blog or a children's literature blog or whatever you like. In fact once you have your newsreader set up and open on your desktop, if you see a blog you like, it might have a "subscribe to NewsGator" button that will do all this work for you. See this at InfoIsland about two screens down on the right side.
I wondered why people would want to do this taking all this trouble to set up this kind of newsreader when you could just go to the individual websites and read whatever you wanted to.
However I see now that it saves a lot of time of typing in every website address and it keep track for you of the postings you've read so you don't have to look over them twice and think back about whether you've read it. You can read the daily news from CNN, AzCentral, ALA, and more this way. It just makes it a lot easier to stay on top of the huge volume of stuff we have available everyday.
Let me know if you have any questions about this process. It's pretty vital for learning the rest.
Happy hunting in the blogosphere!
You find a mention of one that interests you, for instance, Tame the Web: Libraries and Technology a Weblog by Michael Stephens. You go to the web page and read through a few posts. OK, so far not too hard. But there's info posted there almost everyday. What's the easiest way to keep up?
Make the info come to you. Yes, you can order up a subscription to that blog so that all new posts will be delivered to your desktop each time there is a new post. That process is usually called "subscribing to an RSS feed". RSS is a term that is usually described as Really Simple Syndication and it's a simple way to get that blog info delivered every day. The the trick is knowing how. Here's the secret below:
1. Sign up for a free account on a newsreader site like NewsGator.com. Look for the words "Create Account". It's a lot like signing up for a free email account. Very straightforward but tedious. Be sure to write down your username and password.
2. You may want to unselect any "starter packs" that are offered (unless you really want to receive a lot of blogs).
3. You'll be dumped into a new account and be able add a blog by using the "Add Feeds" button in the upper left of the screen. You'll get to a screen that says "There are two ways to find a feed". You'll want to click on the last tab above that. It will say "URL and IMPORT". You'll see an instruction that says "Step 1: Enter the Feed's URL". So here you copy the URL from the address bar of whatever blog you are looking at, for example http://www.tametheweb.com/. Then press "Add feed" and you're done!
4. Now when you go back into your newsreader by clicking on "Webreader" you'll see all the news from that blog.
5. You can add more blogs at any time, for example a science fiction fan's blog or a children's literature blog or whatever you like. In fact once you have your newsreader set up and open on your desktop, if you see a blog you like, it might have a "subscribe to NewsGator" button that will do all this work for you. See this at InfoIsland about two screens down on the right side.
I wondered why people would want to do this taking all this trouble to set up this kind of newsreader when you could just go to the individual websites and read whatever you wanted to.
However I see now that it saves a lot of time of typing in every website address and it keep track for you of the postings you've read so you don't have to look over them twice and think back about whether you've read it. You can read the daily news from CNN, AzCentral, ALA, and more this way. It just makes it a lot easier to stay on top of the huge volume of stuff we have available everyday.
Let me know if you have any questions about this process. It's pretty vital for learning the rest.
Happy hunting in the blogosphere!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)