Week One

Response to Course Material

Information overload is an issue in all professions, but especially so in the medical world. Doctors and health professionals work long hours at jobs that take all of their energy and focus. They may want to keep up with the latest research in a certain field, or follow a certain issue as it develops, but don't have the time it takes to scan through thousands of medical journals and news sites. RSS feeds are a quick and easy way for them to streamline their information sources into one page. As RSS feed technology becomes more and more popular the amount of information available in RSS format will grow in leaps and bounds, making it useful to more and more types of patrons.

Using RSS technology, I could offer to set up RSS feeds specifically tailored to any of my patrons' needs. I can also use RSS feeds to keep up with news and events in my own field. My library has a blog, and I know many other libraries have blogs as well. Subscribing to the blogs of local libraries is a good way to keep up to date with events which may affect me or my patron base. My library is part of a university system and a teaching hospital. It's easy to get out of touch with what these other parts are up to, and too often the first we hear of university and hospital news is when it affects the library unexpectedly. If any of the departments keep blogs, it would be easy to use RSS feeds to make sure I know what's going on outside of the library.

Thoughts on the First Week

This is the first week of MLA's 'Web 2.0 101' course, and already I've learned a lot! I knew a lot about blogs coming into the course, and I knew a little about RSS feeds, but I'd never set up a Feed account before. I chose Blogger.com because it's integrated with Google, and Google has an RSS Reader feature. This means one log in, one account, less for me to remember! I've also posted with Blogger in the past with a student organization I've joined, so it was familiar to me.

I've already found RSS feeds are keeping me up to date on the medical library world. Subscribing to the blog of my local chapter has let me know about upcoming events and networking opportunities. Subscribing to my workplace's blog is letting me know what is being added to the collection and what is going on at other university libraries.