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Learning Schmearning: December 2007

Learning Schmearning

Saturday, December 29, 2007

RSS Feeds

When I tried to get a link so that I could find a URL for sharing my Blogline RSS feeds, I found that, as far as I could see, the only way I could do it was to create a user name and add that to a sample URL they provided, so that my URL is:

http://www.bloglines.com/public/Vinnieboombots

RSS feeds are particularly useful if you have a longterm subject of continuing interest. For many of us who work in libraries, the most useful sort of RSS feeds would be directly related to libraries themselves. Unless you do have a very specific interest, having an RSS feed is really no better and sometimes worse than just going to your favorite sites. For instance, my Firefox browser comes with an RSS feed of headlines from the BBC. While it does give you a nice list of the current stories, I frankly prefer to just check in on my bookmarked BBC, which has more visual content and prioritizes the news.

The problem with RSS feeds is that you are subscribing to individual sites’ feeds. On my own time, I like:

http://congoo.com/news/news.aspx

While it is mostly news, it allows me to select areas of interest and gives me articles from a wide variety of sources, usually quite up to date, quite fresh. But frankly, there again, I find that I end up usually just checking out my favorite sites.

Recently I have added a few of my friend’s blogs as RSS feeds to my MyYahoo page. Before that, I had a couple of other RSS feeds for other blogs that I happened to come across, but very seldom read.

Monday, December 17, 2007

“The Machine is Us/ing Us.”

After watching the YouTube videos suggested as discovery resources for Thing 5, I re-watched “The Machine is Us/ing Us.”

http://www.youtube.com/v/NLlGopyXT_g&rel=1

(It reminds me of Marshall McLuhan’s The Medium is the Massage, only in video form.) At the end it said, we need to rethink—among other things—governance. We’ll certainly need to rethink libraries and, for instance, how they are funded and organized. As long as people want to check out books and other items, and as long as they can’t or won’t access them through digital downloads, there will be a place for brick and mortar libraries. But there’s no telling how long that will be, and as for the Web 2.0 library features, there is a whole new model in which we are competing with and no doubt co-operating with libraries all over America and even the world.

I can’t help wondering who will be willing to fund what, when so much is going to available from other sources on the web.

PS: If you want a Philip Glass-ish experience, start the “The Machine is Us/ing Us” video, then open another window and start it again. Polyrhythmic music!

And BTW: can't you embed videos in Blogger? I tried to embed that video and it didn't show up.

Friday, December 14, 2007

The 7½ Habits of Highly Successful Lifelong Learners

Out of The 7½ Habits of Highly Successful Lifelong Learners, as identified by the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County, “beginning with the end in mind” is probably the hardest for me. My general approach to life is to take it as it comes, go with the flow, etc.

The easiest habit is “viewing problems as challenges.” To me, the word problem implies a solution.