Getting to the On Ramp

1
Getting to the On Ramp

• A presentation for the OLC Technical Services
  Retreat
• by
• George NeedhamVice President, Member Services
• April 26, 2006

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A relevant quote

• If youre in control,
• you arent going fast enough!
• Mario Andretti

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Todays agenda

• Definitions and examples
• Three ways to discover new treasures
• Two easy ways to get information delivered to
  your desktop (and a few others)
• My personal favorite sources and tools

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Credits

• Stephen Bells Keeping Up Website
  http//staff.philau.edu/bells/keepup
• Rush Brandis, Blog the Web with RSS Is it
  Really Simple Syndication? http//webjunction.or
  g/do/DisplayContent?id9098
• Genevieve Foskett (post to Its All Good,
  Thursday, April 20, 2006)

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Credits, page 2

• Judith Siess, Thinking AboutKeeping Up---Its
  Not an Option OPL Newsletter for Librarians and
  Management (222, June 2005, updated April 2006)
  jsiess_at_ibi-opl.com

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Listservs

• Electronic mailing lists
• Provide updates directly to your mailbox
• As each post is added, or
• Daily (or more frequent) compilations or digests
• Older, less interactive, but simple
• Examples PUBLIB, WEB4LIB, AUTOCAT

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Blogs

• Web-based
• Periodic articles or entries
• Online diaries
• Many are subject focused, even if that subject
  is simply one middle-aged librarians look at the
  world
• Examples Its All Good, Shifted Librarian

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XML

• Extensible Mark Up Language
• Powers the various ways of getting information
  around the Web
• Why should you care?

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RSS

• Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary
  (the controversy continues!)
• Creates a link to content from site A (the
  creator) to site B, your e-mail, aggregator (next
  slide), or home page
• Just look for the logo!

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Aggregators

• A tool to bring it all together
• Pull versus Push
• Examples My Yahoo!, Sharp Reader
• Sounds expensive. How much is this going to cost
  me?

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Three Ways to Discover New Sites

• Blog rolls
• Best of lists
• Cross references

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Blog rolls

• A list of blogs that a blogger reads or
  recommends

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Best of lists

• Only as good as the person or organization that
  compiles the list (or counts the votes!)

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Cross References

• Bloggers are reflexively cross-referential
• We frequently point to other posts to help
  propagate a new idea
• or, occasionally, to embarrass the miscreant who
  suggests something dumb
• Again, consider the source!

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Three ways to get content

• My Yahoo!
• Sharp Reader
• iTunes (podcasts)

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My My Yahoo, Before
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My Yahoo!
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My Yahoo Three Steps
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My Yahoo Create 1
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My Yahoo Create 2
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My Yahoo Selections
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Adding Lorcan
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Adding Lorcan 2
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My My Yahoo
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Sharp Reader