Thing #2: RSS

Okay, I'm on a roll! Two THINGS in two days~ who'da thunk it?

RSS is kinda cool - I didn't realize that I could get these summaries on a sidebar instead of filling my email box, although some of my favorite sites don't have blogs or RSS - they're just 'sites'. For example, the Lion Brand website is great for free knit/crochet/craft patterns, but they don't have a newsletter or RSS to tell you when new patterns are available. You just go and search on what you need/want. So RSS won't take the place of visiting some of my sites.

However, I was able to subscribe to all of the Playtime blogs, some design info from Adobe, a knitting blog and AllRecipes (which I use at home anyway) for both holiday/event recipes and healthy cooking recipes. Very cool!

How do we apply this to our library or libraries in general? Patrons could be notified when new books of a certain genre or by a specific author are released (like the top 100 author wait list - I'm never told when a new book is coming out, just when it's ready). We could also set up info that would inform about programming - subscribe to notifications of teen programming, YS registration opening, etc.

I haven't found a great blog, mostly because I don't feel like I have time to sit and read about what other people are doing...I'm late, I'm late, I'm late and don't have time to sit still - when I do, I don't know that I want to read from the computer what someone else has to say, but that's just me.