Gale Databases Now Offer Search Alerts

While searching our Gale databases, you will be given the option to sign up for Search Alerts. This will notify you whenever a new article matches your search terms. You have two options. You can enter your email address and Gale will notify you via email. Or, you can subscribe to an RSS feed and be notified via your feed reader.

Click here to see the Distant Librarian post which includes snapshots.

Great Description of Aggregators/RSS Readers

See this video below from Common Craft about aggregators/rss readers. For those of you already using a reader, then you can't see the video from your reader. You can click here to see it, although since you are already using a reader so you don't have to be convinced to use one... but I like the style of this video and you may too.

Click To Play

There are two types of Internet users, those that use RSS and those that don't. This video is for the people who could save time using RSS, but don't know where to start.

Subscribing to Search Results with the New EPS

Customers will be able to "subscribe" to a search with the new EPS public catalog. How would they be able to do this? More and more people are utilizing web feed subscriptions as a way to handle information. You use an aggregator to subscribe to a web feed and you would then be notified whenever new content is added.

So basically, whenever you perform a search with our catalog, you can subscribe to the results. You would then be notified whenever a new item was added the the catalog that now appears in that search.

For example, a Civil War buff would subscribe to a search for "Civil War". Whenever a new item was added to the collection that included the phrase "civil war", the customer would be notified via their aggregator.

For more information on web feeds, see the previous articles I have written on that subject.

If you have any questions regarding this process, please let me know (email, phone, comments, wiki discussion page, etc.).

Another Library Search Engine

Libworm is another search engine devoted solely to library-related blogs feeds. The main difference between this one and the other library search engine I wrote about is that LibWorm offers RSS feeds of searches.

So, if you are interested in a certain topic and you want to know when someone in the library world blogs about it, perform a search and subscribe to it. You will be notified when a new result appears.

Bloglines Presentation for Managers, Nov. 9

Here is the slide show for the presentation at the Manager's Meeting for November 9.



Additional assistance in getting started using http://www.bloglines.com can be obtained by viewing the Bloglines Video Series.

Bloglines Video Series

Since blogs show the newest stuff first, the videos appear in reverse order. However, I'll list the links to the posts in chronological order here. As a recap, for those of you who were interested in attending one of my aggregator workshops but cannot because of whatever reason, you can view these videos.

I. Bloglines Registration
II. Finding and Adding Web Feeds
III. Reading Your Web Feed Articles
IV. Saving Articles from Your Web Feeds

Here is the "handout" used during the training.

If you are having difficulty finding things you are interested in, you can take a look at all of my subscriptions. They are listed on the right side bar of this blog. Just scroll down and bit and you will see them. And, no, I won't make a video showing you how to do that!

IV. Saving Articles from Your Web Feeds

The final video (for now, at least) about getting started with Bloglines. This one shows you how to save an article in case you want to read it later.

III. Reading Your Web Feed Articles

Here is the third video for the Bloglines series. This shows you how to read your web feeds once you have subscribed to them.

II. Finding and Adding Web Feeds

Here is the second video on getting started with bloglines. This explains the basics of identifying and adding web feeds to bloglines. Enjoy!

I. Bloglines Registration

OK, for you folks who were not able to attend any of the aggregator workshops I am conducting, here is a boring video on registering for bloglines. I am going to do some follow-up videos on the fun part of bloglines but wanted to start from the beginning.

Mainly, though, you will see just how darn easy (and quick) it is to get started.

Receive Web Feeds in Your Email

Lately, I have been advertising the web feed reader/aggregator as a way to receive updates from various web feeds (click here for links to past articles). The only problem with this is that some folks have a hard enough time remembering to check their e-mail that they could never remember to check ANOTHER website.

Welcome to www.feedblitz.com. If you register for feedblitz, you can subscribe to various feeds and you will receive a daily email with any new posts that were added the previous day. While this does take a bit a work upfront, once it is set up, you can receive all of your updates through your familiar email interface.

For an extensive list of aggregators, visit this site. The first category is Web-Based Aggregators like bloglines. Scroll down to E-mail Based Aggregators to see a list of sites like feedblitz.