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Week 2: RSS and Social Bookmarking

Submitted by hyager on Fri, 2006-09-22 22:37.

Week of Feb 19th, 2007

Introduction

This week's topics are newsfeeds (of various sorts) and social bookmarking. By the end of the week you should:

  • Understand which breeds of social software create newsfeeds
  • Recognize and subscribe to a newsfeed
  • Recognize the various "flavors" of newsfeed format
  • Know how and why to include newsfeeds on a library web page
  • Recognize and be comfortable with using social-bookmarking services
  • Understand how to tag bookmarked links
  • Understand how tagging creates "folksonomies"


Presentations

Webcast - February 20, 7:00 pm Eastern: Getting up to Speed with RSS Webfeeds - Michele Mizejewski, Electronic Services Specialist Librarian, Redwood City Library

Webcast - February 22, 2:00 pm Eastern: Make your library del.icio.us - Jason Griffey, Reference and Instructional Librarian, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

Screencast: Using RSS to Add Currency to the Library Web Site (via streaming server - faster for those on slow connections | via blip.tv) - Melissa Rethlefsen, Education Technology Librarian, Learning Resource Center, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine
Web page to supplement presentation.

Screencast - Tagging, Folksonomies and the Collective Consciousness of Online Communities (via streaming server - faster for those on slow connections | via blip.tv) - Gabriel Lundeen, Adult Services Librarian, Los Angeles Public Library

Presenter chat - February 21, 9:00 pm Eastern: Melissa Rethlefsen, author of "Using RSS to Add Currency to the Library Website." In the main chatroom.


Activities

Activity 1: Explore a Feed Reader

If you do not already have one, please sign up for an account on Bloglines (registration page) OR Google Reader (main page with login link). Instructions for using Bloglines can be found here. Instructions for using Google Reader can be found here. You may create or use an account on another feed reader (e.g. Rojo, NewsIsFree) if you prefer.

Find five weblogs OR wikis OR news sources OR podcasts OR other RSS feed creators whose content you wish to track. Subscribe to them in Bloglines or Google Reader (or the feed reader of your choice).

Now, add a folder to your subscription list labeled with the name of a colleague or family member. Find five feeds you think that person would enjoy or ought to follow, subscribe to them, and place them in the folder. If you're daring enough, show your colleague or family member what you've done!

Optional: Add a folder to your subscription list labeled "5weeks." Find five feeds you think your fellow participants ought to follow, and add them to the folder.

Write a blog post about your reflections on this activity and whether or not you think an RSS aggregator/newsreader would be a good tool for keeping up with information.

Activity 2: Explore del.icio.us

If you do not already have one, please sign up for an account on del.icio.us (registration page).

Find five websites (they don't have to be blogs!) you think your fellow participants ought to know about. Bookmark them in del.icio.us and tag them "5weeks". When you're done, check out what else has the 5weeks tag. Did anyone else find the same sites you did? (Feel free to keep bookmarking and tagging sites for the remainder of the course! It'll be a great resource for everyone afterwards.)

Over the remaining weeks of Five Weeks, bookmark and tag at least five webpages in del.icio.us (or the social-bookmarking utility of your choice) for yourself. For the page that has the most other people bookmarking it, find out who else bookmarked it and how they tagged it. Feel free to follow tags to see what else has been bookmarked under them! Write a blog post on your impressions of social bookmarking and how you think it could be used in libraries.

Activity 3: Add a Feed via Javascript (optional)

If you have write-access to a web page (that is, you can add or edit a page on a site somewhere) and some HTML knowledge, try incorporating a feed into the page. You may use any of the tools listed on this page or this page (or test two or more tools against each other, why not?). If you'd like to try this but you don't have write access to a web page, get in touch with Dorothea.

Activity 4: Look at an RSS feed (optional)

Open the link to an actual RSS feed for a blog you're familiar with in your web browser. (Contact Dorothea if you aren't sure how to do this; usually, right-clicking on an RSS icon and opening it in a new window will work.) Examine how the pieces of the blog are coded into the feed, and connect that with how they appear in Bloglines. Congratulations! You're reading XML.


Readings

Please read these as your interests dictate and as time allows. These are not strictly required, but will aid you in your understanding of the subject.

RSS

You will find that quite a few of the RSS readings overlap. This is intentional. Don't feel that you have to keep reading once you understand something... but if you don't understand something in one article, go on to the next, in case its explanation works better for you.

We only expect you to absorb the gist of the "Easy Readings." The rest is for enrichment.

Easy Readings

More Technical Readings

Only If You're Really, Really Interested

Ongoing Reading

Social Bookmarking

Essential Readings

Supplemental Readings


Examples

Here are examples of libraries using the technologies and of some of the tools libraries are using to make this happen.

Libraries

Libraries Using RSS

Libraries Using Social Bookmarking

Tools

RSS

Social Bookmarking

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