RSS Skeptic

This week I have set up RSS feeds to ABC News and Curtin Library' new Media and Information titles (as part of the 23 Things programme) I already had one for new literature books here at Murdoch Library.



To be honest, I couldn't think of any website that I consistently check dalily, or even weekly, so it was a struggle to find RSS feeds that I would actually find useful. Maybe the weather? but bom.gov.au doesn't have an RSS feed, and although Kathryn found out how to set one up the "roundabout" way I didn't do so for two reasons; 1) I don't actually want to check the weather every single day, and if I'm checking my reader just for the weather, why don't I go straight to the source? 2) out of protest- I mean this is supposed to be convenient, it's not exactly time-saving or convenient to have to track these things down (or get another person to track it down for you, how very 1.0)



I cancelled the two RSS feeds I set up before (ALIA and Local Govt). Although I was initially embracing the "new" concept of information arriving conveniently on my desktop and not going throught the arduous task of actually looking for it, I found that there was simply too much information to be manageable. Also, the information arrived not on my terms (not on my set parameters nor in a format the I was comfortable with nor at a time convenient to me) but on the terms of the host website. It turns out that rather than making my life easier and my information retrieval habits more effective, I recieved too much information and I missed out on stuff I wanted anyway because I was unable to set my own parameters.



I suppose that when something starts up, the technology will be far from perfect, and that RSS feeds will become more sophisticated over time. For now I will stick to my Luddite 0.0 ways of checking.... hang on.... my zero favourite websites daily :)



signed,

skeptical member of iGen

23 Things Goals

Human beings are all lifelong learners and always have been. In terms of this programme (yes damn it I will spell the "English" English way, you can throw as many red squiggly lines under "programme" as you like) the hardest Step would be step 1 "Begin with the End in Mind". This is difficult because, left to my own devices, I would learn things as required, or as they piqued my interest, so the end would be quite clear. Before we start to learn anything new, we need to ask ourselves, "why am I prioritising learning this?"

I suppose with 23 Things, the goal is to keep up with the programme and learn about things I didn't even know existed, with the idea that they will be useful later on as a librarian.

The easiest step would appear to be "play", however, in a culture that values time as money, this could also be quite difficult, in terms of allocating time to do so. Genuinely useful and innovative things do not come into fruition in times of "deadlines" and stress, but when we are just "messing about".

The easiest step would be step 2, Accept responsibility for your own learning, because I always have and I find it very enjoyable to learn new things; the human brain gets sleepy without new subject matter!

Toolkit Shopping List:
1) Headphones
2) Enthusiasm
3) Time