Netvibes and other aggregators

Netvibes offers a personalized page to receive and organize feeds, podcasts, modules (games, clock, etc.), tabs (indexing). The idea of personalizing your feed aggregator seems good—Netvibes fits a lot more on one screen than Google Reader; that’s one problem I have with Google Reader—not enough visible on a screen. But Netvibes is very busy as a result; it also seems very commercial and very American. It seemed to give you the choice of feeds rather than expecting you to go and find feeds you would like--in that way, it is less personalized! I wonder to what extent one could redesign its appearance?

Rojo will be back “zoon” and did not work when I tried it. I looked through the Rss Readers and Aggregators listed on Yahoo! --too much choice out there; but is it really all that distinct?

Case Studies – Libraries’ Use of RSS Feeds

The main focus of the case studies for this week was on libraries that list RSS feeds leading from very specific parts of their website-blog.

As an aside, a caution is evident for anyone using a blog for official reasons, as for a library—be sure the text has no mistakes before you post it—it does not make a good impression on readers if there is a mistake/typo (such as I noticed on the Hennepin County Library blog).

I experimented with leaving the RSS feeds page in each case, and seeing how easy it is to navigate to it from a main page of the website-blog. In the case of the Hennepin County Library, I could not find the path back to the RSS feeds page even though the path had been displayed at the top of that page (even a search in the search box did not lead back to the page). I wonder how a library user would find the feeds?

I feel that feeds are being overdone, overly detailed. For example, in the Hennepin CL site, the subject guide, booklist, events & classes, and news feeds might be useful (though I would think that events and news would be better combined); the “catalogue news & search tips” is probably not a popular choice of a feed, and would be better combined with a general news feed. The “My Account” feed would be useful if it alerted you about holds coming available and about books coming due soon; these services are already provided by some libraries by automatic emails.

The idea behind having many feeds, with specific subjects, is to cater to particular needs and interests, and not to overload the user. But perhaps the user will be overloaded by the crowd of individual feeds subscribed to.

The idea of making a catalog search into a custom feed would be useful for keeping up to date with what is being written in a particular field of interest. This feed option should explain that it is only for subject searches (it would not make sense otherwise). This is similar to a current contents awareness program offered by databases, with notifications sent automatically to email addresses. The North Harris Montgomery Community College District provides just this service, through its current contents feeds from specific journals—from a database that draws from multiple journals would be more useful.

Western Kentucky University Libraries seems quite casual in its tone, with more programming than is usual at a university. The many feeds from the home page are for many blogs of varying style and format, not holding together in the style of the university’s main blog. The feed breakdowns into Coming Events, Current Events, and Part Events (who would want this one?) seem like overkill. Old Stuff and News Stuff feeds are very vague, and not fitting for the academic setting. The university is trying to use the blogs and feeds for social purposes, to reach out to students on a personal basis, separate from academics. To me, they do not fit in with a university library website.

The University of Oklahoma Libraries’ use of RSS feeds to new titles is quite clever—connected to the LC classification system, and broken down into specific subject areas within that system, making for a feed similar to that from a customized search. I would imagine that this service would be of particular interest to faculty.

An examination of the Kansas City Public Library blog includes a look at RSS/XML feeds, but goes far beyond that. I was very impressed by the tremendous amount of research on the part of the library staff that has gone into producing the rich detail of this blog. The 47 categories of subject guides are broken down into many sub-categories, and each main category can be chosen as an RSS feed of new titles. In addition, there are many other guides: for example, the Local History guides have many sections, with biographies, links between guides, subject searching in the guides, links to the OPAC for sources. These serve as online pathfinders to materials. There is also a listing of a large number of external links on each page, specific to the subject area of that page. I feel this blog, with its guides, categories, links, and feeds, is a tremendous success.

Receive RSS?--Easy; Create Feeds?--Unsure

It seems that RSS is a hard concept to communicate. Numerous articles and blogs use headlines similar to “So what exactly is RSS?”. This indicates that the concept is still in its infancy, and although many people now use it, a far larger number do not and do not understand it. Perhaps the acronym and the term “syndication” are too mysterious, or perhaps it is just too new.

It seems that receiving feeds through RSS is far easier than setting them up if one is a web publisher. Good’s article balances the pros and cons of RSS well. RSS is secure so far (few Trojans, not often spammable), but I think it will only be a matter of time before there will be problems with RSS feeds as there are currently with incoming email. The emphasis of Good’s article is on RSS feeds replacing e-publishing. In other words, replacing another one-way broadcasting. The RSS feed can replace the newslist or newsletter. The difficulty with RSS is that the broadcaster no longer has a list of mailing addresses and no longer knows the subscribers. For a company this will be solved with fee-based private feeds. Using RSS for broadcasted feeds would free up email for two-way communication and correspondence. I gather that the news aggregator collects information stored inside an auto-generating file that sits next to the web page and that contains updates to that page. I agree with Cohen’s remarks that aggregators need to be smarter—that we need keyword searching so that the feeds do not overload subscribers.

My reaction to this week’s readings is that although I already had a basic understanding of RSS feeds, I feel no closer to being able to create one myself, and remain confused. I found Nottingham’s tutorial full of useful detail, and I can see that using XML correctly is essential for your feed. However, I can’t say that at the end of the readings I know how to approach the XML for RSS. I need to examine examples.

More Case Studies--Different Blogs

The blogs examined this week were not as impressive to me as the ones we looked at last week. However, they were varied in the purposes they were aiming at.

The Darien Library, for example, is trying to address different patrons groups (community, teens, children), different interests (movies, books), and different aspects of the library and its service (director’s blog, information & technology blog, events blog, front desk blog—this last one did not work) with multiple blogs and perhaps one or two staff members responsible for each. Is the aim to make the patron aware of all the different aspects of a library? The result for me was fragmentation. The information was too subdivided. The children and teens blogs resembled the other ones in style, and the need to separate them seemed lost. The frequency of entries varied from blog to blog, depending on the time and effort devoted to blogging by the various staff members.

Garfield County Public Library blog was a single blog with multiple bloggers. Its title, “Library Loung” is appropriate—it resembled a staff room chat, wanderings on topics that would not be understood by most patrons. It did not have a focus.

The Lamson Library blog, from Plymouth State University, seems to be a groundbreaking project under development, to incorporate the OPAC into WordPress. The blog was linked to the website and current catalogue. So far, the blog serves to purpose of highlighting recent acquisitions and material in demand. I was not clear about the final goal of the project, and the link to it did not work the second time I checked it.

MabryOnline is another use of multiple blogs, this time in a school setting. Each administrative department (principal, nurse, café, counsellor) had a separate blog. The identifying photos were good in each. Some were better at updating their blogs than others. The band’s blog looked the most professional. Teachers also had blogs, and feeds for these blogs were being encouraged. As with Darien PL, the fragmentation seems overdone. These blogs seem to be replacing a school newsletter, which would have brought the information together. Parents, fellow staff, and students, all potential readers of the blogs, might very well miss important information because it is so scattered.

St. Joseph County Public Library Game Blog seems to have no link to the library’s website. Obviously it is attracting many comments by the teens who are participating in the gaming tournaments. The staff seems as involved as the teens—their language style is no different. I wonder whether the blog lends too much familiarity.

The Virginia Commonweath University Suggestion Blog seems to be well used. It has a focus—a “suggestion box” Q&A--and the comments are well worded, with responses by the appropriate staff member. It seems to be well used by both faculty and students. Multiple users, but with a narrower focus—this seems to work better. Again, I could see no link to the library website.

I came to several conclusions as a result of examining these cases. This list is far from exhaustive—just a few thoughts:

1. A blog must have a clearly stated, narrow enough purpose that it will remain focused and useful to both bloggers and readers.

2. A blog must have frequent entries—needing a dedicated blogger to keep it going.

3. Multiple blogs within the same institution such as a school or library are too fragmented. A few, each with distinct and appealing presentations and styles, can be good—e.g., book recommendations, children’s events, teen advisory, and general. More becomes too busy.

4. Having multiple bloggers on the same blog works for the narrowly focused Suggestion Box since all responses are formal and there is no need for a personal style. In more personal styles of blogs, multiple bloggers make the blog inconsistent and lacking in direction.

5. The intended audience of the blog should be stated clearly—patrons, staff, parents, etc.

6. A blog should be well indexed and categorized.

The blogs examined above serve different purposes, albeit not all successfully. In order for a library to use blogs successfully, they should be integrated more visibly into the mainstream website. This would combine and coordinate the information into one place for readers. The Ann Arbor example of a blog that was well categorized and indexed and aesthetically pleasing. Bogs may well replace websites, hence serving many purposes, as the more sophisticated layouts become more widespread. They must be professional and focused as well as showing a distinct personal touch.

Weblogging Matures

Everyone in the blogosphere should be reading guidelines for writing good blogs before they start publishing on the web. The world of blogging is only a few years old, and many are jumping in fresh, without any experience in this new form.

The emergence of blogging strategies and weblog ethics indicates that the weblog is maturing. Yet the mainstream is still largely unaware of details about weblogs, as shown by the Net Rage study. Weblogs are no longer only communications between bloggerati; readership of blogs is entering mainstream usage, as in the examples of the many libraries using blogs in conjunction with or even replacing their websites, and perhaps explanations about weblog construction and functions need to be included to clarify them for the mainstream reader.

Bloggers have tended to pour out thoughts--Schneider’s expression “information become conversation” describes the style—such is the temptation offered by the ease of blog publishing. Perhaps blogs should be compared to editorials written on the fly. Because there is now so much being written, perhaps blog texts should be written with more care (here’s the editor in me coming out), remembering accuracy, and acknowledging any biases (Blood). In other words, bloggers need to become more professional, since, after all, they are publishing on the web. It all makes common sense to me. I think bloggers need to slow down and reflect so that they will be proud of what they have written when they read it 10 years down the road.

Thoughts on how to choose a blog software for a library

My head is a swirl of MySQL, PHP, Apache, and the many options available in open source weblog and content management software. A steep learning curve lies ahead—I have no programming background. I can see that for a library’s use, a more complex weblog software is needed. It seems that some of the options to consider would be clear and detailed categorization; ability to host multiple blogs; a small core, with plugin architecture for adaptability; control by site administrator; flexible design (advanced skinning?) to fit in with a website, or static page options to resemble a website; robust spam blocking. It looks as if the more complex and flexible softwares, ones that a library would need to fit its customized needs, are those that are user hosted. The user then has to have programming ability. The developer-hosted softwares are usable with no programming experience, and seem less flexible and of limited use for a library.

Case Studies of Blogs

In the three examples of library blogs, the division between blog and website has become seamless. Libraries are now taking advantage of the characteristics of a blog integrated into the website, with the same appearance as the website and the same tabs at the top of the page throughout for navigation. What the blog adds are the frequent updates, with most recent news listed first, making the website a far more dynamic and current source of information. The fact that it is so simple to make these updates makes it easy for staff; the blog lends itself to the short and concise posts needed to announce news and events at the library.

The Ann Arbor District Library seemed to have contributions from not just staff, but patrons as well—the list of postings is viewable. As I looked at the site, it was updated several times. I was impressed that a posting about an upcoming teen video game event had received 176 comments from teens—the blog was successful in reaching out. It is easy to hot link text in a blog and this site was full of links that served the role of encouraging blog readers to navigate around the site. The many short entries about books served a great purpose—arousing interest in the collection and in reading. Everything was well indexed and categorized—something that is quite manageable using blog software.

Georgia State University Library has a number of blogs within its website, subject specific blogs, all indexed on the right side of the screen, with feeds. It also has a flickr of slides of the library construction (from which I could not navigate back to the website). From the home page, the blogs are not evident—they can be accessed through the site index. The main blog page groups the most recent entries for all the library’s blogs, with categorization to make it clear which blog they come from. Blogging is restricted to library staff, but again, the short entries are easy—and can communicate temporary news such as the bound copies of journals being unavailable for two months.

Madison-Jefferson County Public Library again had a seamless website and blog. The individual blogs for Kids Zone, and Your Space for teens were personalized to those age groups. Entries were only by library staff, and again kept readers up to date of events and news. Email submissions were welcomed—with a promise that good ones would be posted. This use of email for submission allows library staff to maintain control of the quality of blog entries.

Western Springs History is a beautifully designed blog of historical houses--although the site calls itself a website and not a blog. Characteristics of the blog enhance this site: categories and links on the right side of the page; and the interactive aspect of comments—readers have submitted carefully worded (not casual blog language) historical information on the houses illustrated in the blog, making the website a true ongoing group effort on the Web—drawing from snippets of memories of a wide group of people and leading from one memory to the sparking of another.

Musings on Discoveries to Come--Week Two

This week’s readings gave me a better understanding about the development of blogging and of some of the vocabulary I did not know, such as TrackBack and blogroll. Hourihan’s explanation of permalinks was interesting—I can imagine how difficult it would have been to browse through previous posts to find stuff. I am not sure how to set up a permalink, or whether this happens automatically.

I wish I had known about the various attributes of the different blogging software before I chose the software for my blog. I think WordPress would have been a better choice because it offers categorization of archived records, and also a blogroll at the side of the screen, both of which are unavailable in Blogger. I understand that there might be additional modules that might add these functionalities—for Blogger? I wonder why LiveJournal is not included in Gardner’s comparison of blogging software. Is it because LiveJournal’s intent is to be more than a blog?

I do not like the permanency of what is posted/commented—making it impossible to totally delete any spam that appears, only possible to disable it.

I wonder whether Blood’s comments about her blogging experience--discovering her own interests and valuing her own opinions and ideas—will be valid for my experience as well. So far, I am still hesitant about the idea of expressing ideas online.

Socialization Online --Individuals and Groups

I love the Kenneth Boulding quote in Stowe Boyd’s article, “We make our tools, and then they shape us”. That’s the way in which civilization has developed. I can really see that social software is changing the way in which we socialize. And as social software develops new abilities, this ongoing change process continues. The early blogs were largely in one direction, broadcasts of rants, personal journals bared to the online world, with occasional comments coming back. An extension of the diary. Now communication on social software is multi-directional, involving group interactions and reflecting all the unpredictability of those interactions.

I also like Boyd’s description of social software: “tools that depend on social convention more than on software features to facilitate interaction and collaboration.”

I was unaware of the widespread use of social software in the business world and looked up the names Boyd mentioned (Ryze, etc.); it seems the contact and networking through such software open huge doors!

I also like Bion’s quote used by Shirky: “humans are fundamentally individual and fundamentally social”. Group cohesion takes over at an early stage—we are essentially herd animals. All this sounds very philosophical, and essentially a study of social software seems to resemble a study of human psychology—because we are examining how humans interact in a new environment. What we do online with social software is governed by who we are. I have often felt there was a lack of direction in many cc’d emails and blog entries I have read as a lurker over the past year or so. Focus is hard to maintain in the enormity of the online environment. That’s why Shirky’s guidelines for group size are important. And so is his discussion of the fact that the committed core group has rights that trump individual rights when the individual breaks the rules.

In the world of the Internet, having no access is isolating

I am finally hooked up to my own computer after more than three weeks without it. So here goes a catchup on entries.
As an introduction to the subject of social software, I read Wade Roush's overview of Web 2.0 developments, and the article by Steven Levy and Brad Stone. Roush's comment about the coming together of three enabling technologies that make computing coninuous makes sense: cheap, easily available Internet access; proliferation of portable wireless computing devices; the Web as a platform for personal publishing and social software. The vocabulary he presents seems almost invasive: "continuous computing", "always on", an "electronic swirl of commentary and interpretation" that draws "attention away from the here and now". Are we living in another world through our computers, shut off from the real world? Levy and Stone do not feel so. They write "Cyberspace was somewhere else. The Web is where we live". In other words, the world of the computer has, in many ways, become our reality. Roush's blog is interspersed with comments from readers--I guess that means it is a LiveJournal (I read Christy's interesting description)?--and one comment reflects a caution that I feel needs to be examined: "Because we can, should we?" The explosion of Web 2.0 parallels globalization, and , as Levy and Stone write, it harnesses collective intelligence. The collective, collaborative effort can produce so much more than the effort of an individual. In all the rush to publish and share, the emphasis is actually on the here and now, and I feel that sometimes we need to step back and produce quality and not quantity for its own sake. Publish Post

Introduction 757

Hi, I am Jill, a library science student pursuing a distance course in social software. This is my first attempt at making my own blog.