Thing 9: Library-related blogs and newsfeeds

Bloglines search tool is great, and the "preview feed" option saves time spent clicking to view, then returning to the list. Subscribing, of course, is a cinch since all you have to do is click, decide where to file, and save. It's also incredibly useful to see the date of when the blog or feed was last updated since there's no point in subscribing to one that's not current.

There's a wealth of information on the Merlin site. I wandered through Learning Links > Computing and Technical Resources > Trends & Cool Stuff > Library Success. This is a wiki for libraries to contribute their best practices in every imaginable area. The contributions are pretty sparse, but what's there is interesting and useful:

• Libraries that circulate games and their success stories
• Services to special groups
• The Technology category
• Library-related blogs and web sites

I didn't immediately take to Topix but after poking around for a bit, I could see the value of using it instead of subscribing to feeds. You could go right to Topix for most news -- consolidated in one place -- or simply subscribe to the Topix RSS feed, since it serves as an aggregator of feeds from multiple sources.

I considered subscribing to some of the popular blogs on Technorati (Boing Boing, Lifehacker, 43 Folders, Creating Passionate Users) since the topics were of interest, but found a lack of worthwhile content. It meant too much sifting through useless comments.