RSS feeds yay

RSS feeds? Now this I can see an immediate use for. When I think of all the sites I bookmark and regularly visit, this takes up a lot of time to check them all.

If I can add the RSS feeds to my google homepage or to my Gmail, then I need only check them to find recent updates that I may then choose to read or ignore. In fact, I've decided to add my gmail inbox to my google homepage. I also ask for google alerts from blogs or other places when researching a topic, and google sends me the results.

It's like having a personal research secretary collect new information in my interest areas. So I've added feeds to book review sites, art sites and the like to gather it all quickly in one place.

Now say I was covering Religion, Literature and the Arts as subject areas for collection development and library programming, I could subscribe to relevant RSS feeds and collect data easily to support my area of work. This would save me a lot of time at work.

While our library does some programming, it is mostly not promoted online at this stage.
As our library doesn't have a blog or an online newsletter,
I wonder can library related feeds be added to a library site webpage dedicated to RSS feeds?

Of course, not all useful sites offer feeds - it seems they are from blogs and news sites mostly. So when I checked for RSS feeds from Flying Arts and Dept of Creative Industries, neither site currently offer RSS feeds and not all blogs offer feeds - I decided not to offer feeds from my own blog for instance until I am committed to updating it past the SLQ Licence to Test Drive program.

My google homepage now recieves feeds from our local paper with emphasis on local news, entertainment and the arts, and the ABC's blog Articulate which sends out a daily take on arts news and events. This is information I may not have seen in the past, or missed checking for lack of time.

Thanks, RSS!

Twittering

I read in the Courier Mail recently that the retention rate for Twitter is low - I imagine that Twittering would be quick but also require persistence on the part of both writer and reader.
Do people who follow blogs lose interest?
How do libraries ensure that where they post is useful and followed?

I guess promotion of the blog itself as well as the library service.
And time for the staff to develop great informative content.

Programs that are already being developed can be marketed in a number of ways - word of mouth, paper flyers, newspaper and internet site. Once you have one flyer, the content is easily transferable to another media. So the work done is spread in several directions to make sure the public get to know what is being offered.

I found an interesting blog on colour print production recently and left a question about a problem I have printing digital art. I am eagerly hoping the blog owner will be kind enough to help me.......Hmm, a live reference service that is available over the internet - have any of us got one up and running and how is it best run?