Welcome to Week 4 of 23 Things!

Hopefully you have completed the Things for Week 3 which means that you have explored Flickr, mashups, and posted something about "anything technology" to your blogs. Did you visit the participant blogs yet? (http://smrlaparticipants.blogspot.com/) They are looking really great! I see lots of good learning going on out there. Also, take a look at what participants are doing across the State. For example, check out Eastern Shore Regional, Western Maryland Regional, Carroll County, Howard County, Cecil County, and more!

This week’s topic is RSS & Newsreaders - you have the following activities to complete:

Week 4: RSS & Newsreaders8. Learn about RSS feeds and setup your own Bloglines newsreader account.9. Locate a few useful library related-blogs and/or news feeds.

Tips:
You may find the very end of the Thing 8 is a little difficult in terms of "finding your public bloglines" URL. Consider that part optional, but take it on as a challenge. Blogrolls are lists of other people's blogs that you put onto your blog. Often you will see a blog that lists other blogs. This is a blogroll. There’s an example on MERLIN (see “Library News Blogs” on right of home page). MERLIN is discussed in Thing 9. Also, on the right hand side of the SMRLA 23 Things page, you will see “Participants’ Blogs.” This is a blogroll. You will notice at the very bottom of the list is says, “Powered by Bloglines.”
In Thing 9, we mention MERLIN. If you don't know about MERLIN, please check it out. Currently, the MERLIN Advisory is starting a new site supporter team to work on the MERLIN website. If you have any suggestions, please post these to your blog for Thing 9. We hope that after you finish the 23 Things, that you will continue to play with new technologies and use MERLIN as a resource. We plan to continue to add cool new stuff and ways that we can share as a community there.
Please remember to comment in your blog posts about how you might use what you’ve learned this week in your library. Answer: “What is one practical application for what you’ve learned this week?”

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Regards,
Jennifer