This is a "rest week" where there are no new Things. You can use this week to catch up with any of the first 7 things, or enjoy the break!
Just think: 7 down only 16 to go or alternatively, 1 cake down, only 9 chances left to win! (I wonder which viewpoint makes you a pessimist and which an optimist...?)
AC will be gathering you up into groups on Tuesday and Thursday to Follow That... Book!
BLOG
Please write a short blog post about an aspect of the journey of a book, from publisher to shelf, that you weren't aware of before.
ps - cake winner will be announced on Tuesday (I'm taking Monday off to bake the cake!)
You’ve heard of RSS? You’ve seen those small funny orange icons on websites? You’ve heard friends and colleagues swear by it, but still have no idea what RSS is? Well don’t worry! RSS is not only revolutionalising the way news, media and content creators share information, but it also is swiftly changing the way everyday users are consuming information.
RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication” and is a file format for delivering regularly updated information over the web. Just think about the websites and news information sources you visit everyday. It takes time to visit those sites and scour the ad-filled and image-heavy pages for just the text you want to read, doesn’t it?
Now imagine if you could visit all those information sources and web pages in just one place and all at the same time … without being bombarded with advertising… without having to search for new information on the page you’d already seen or read before… and without having to consume a lot of time visiting each site individually. Would that be valuable to you? Well, it’s available now through a newsreader and RSS!
Now it’s time to try 3 different ways to organise the RSS feeds you find useful.
Thing 5 – Browser based RSS Reader
You can use the Internet browser to manage your RSS feeds, in the same way as you use it to organise you favourite (or bookmarked) websites.
Task
Step by Step:
First find an RSS feed you like – look for the RSS button on your favourite websites (or perhaps try the Medical Library RSS feed for starters, or try the BBC News website, or your favourite newspaper website)
Click the RSS button to view the feed.
Folllow the instructions for the web browser you use most often:
Using Internet Explorer,
click the green plus/gold star button to “subscribe to this feed”
Name the feed in a way that makes sense to you.
Click subscribe.
To view the feed to check if there are any new items for you to read, click the gold star button, and pick the “feeds” column – if the name of the feed is bold there is new material for you to read; if the name of the feed is in normal type, there is no new material for you to read
OR
Using Firefox,
Click “subscribe now”
Name the feed in a way that makes sense to you.
Click subscribe.
To view the feed to check if there are any new items for you to read, click “bookmarks” chose “bookmarks toolbar” and then pick the feed you want. Click on the entry that is interesting to you.
Perhaps you could try adding a few more RSS feeds. You could try using the 23 Things blog feed (look for the orange button in the browser menu to view the RSS feed).
BLOG:
Take a screenshot of your browser based RSS feeds, and load it into your blog. Label it “Thing 5”
Don’t remember how? [There's some instructions in the Hints & Tips]
Thing 6 – Web based RSS reader
There are many available but for the purposes of this programme we will use Google Reader as you have already created an account with Google.
• Go to Google Reader at www.google.com/reader
• Sign in with your Google account username and password
• watch this video
Once logged in you will see the homepage of your account. Down the left-hand side is a navigation panel and on the right is the main section of the page where you will see the content of your feeds. Automatically displayed are some posts from Google to help you get started. You can read through these now or come back to them later.
To show you how to receive updates from a site we will start by subscribing to the feed for the 23 Things blog.
• In the blog's sidebar you will see the heading 'Subscribe to this blog'. Underneath it are options to subscribe to the posts and the comments. For now we will just subscribe to the posts.
• Click the link to the posts RSS feed and a drop down menu will appear listing a number of feed readers. From the list choose 'Add to Google'.
• A new window will open giving you the option to either add the feed to your Google homepage or Google Reader. Add this feed to your Google Reader by clicking the blue 'Add to Google Reader' button.
• You will be taken into your Google Reader account. In the navigation panel on the left you will now see 23 Things Oxford under the Subscriptions heading. In the main section of the page you will see the latest update from the blog. To view previous updates scroll down the main section or you can use the 'N' and 'P' keys to move through the udpates.
Your next step is to locate some more blogs and websites to subscribe to.
Be aware that not all website/blogs have buttons like the one on this blog which allow you to easily subscribe to feeds using Google Reader. In some cases you will have to copy and paste the feed's URL into your reader following the steps below:
• Once you have located the site's RSS feed right click on the link and choose 'Copy Shortcut'
• Open another tab or window and sign in to your Google Reader account
• Click the 'Add Subscription' button at the top of the left-hand navigation panel. Right click in the text box that appears and choose 'Paste'.
Finally click 'Add' and you will see the site's feed added to your subscriptions. Try adding 3 or 4 different feeds.
Extra Task (optional)
share your feeds
when you have set up some RSS feeds in your reader, click on the “share” button. You can add a comment on the item you have chosen to share if you like.
Click the “setting” button, and chose “reader settings”
Click “folders and tags”
View the “public page” of your shared items.
Add this link into your blog, and write a short comment about how this functionality might be useful.
BLOG:
Take a screenshot of your Google Reader page, and load it into your blog. Label it “Thing 6”
Thing 7 - MyLibrary RSS reader
Your NHS ATHENS password will also let you set up an RSS reader.
(if you need a reminder of your NHS ATHENS password, please ask Isla, Alison or Anna).
Task:
Go to http://www.library.nhs.uk/mylibrary/ and login with your ATHENS password (login button is on the top right-hand corner)
The section called “My Update” is the RSS reader.
Open another web page, and find an RSS feed that you find interesting.
Highlight and copy the address (URL) of this feed
Return to the MyLibrary page, and click “add feed” button
Paste the address/URL into the URL box, and give the feed a name that makes sense to you.
See the message that states “The feed has been added successfully” and click “continue to MyLibrary”
Add more RSS feeds as you wish.
Scroll to the bottom of the page – and register for email alerts of the RSS feeds if you wish.
BLOG:
Take a screenshot of your Google Reader page, and load it into your blog. Label it “Thing 7”
BLOG:
Write a blog entry about your impressions of RSS in general. Do you think it could be useful? Which of the 3 ways of gathering RSS feeds did you like most, and why?
What do you like about RSS and newsreaders?
How do you think you might be able to use this technology in your work or personal life?
Which method of finding feeds did you find easiest to use?
What kind of useful feeds did you find in your travels?
(ps - the cake in the picture is not an accurate representation of the prize. This week the lucky winner will get the lemon drizzle cake that is sitting in the fridge!)
People blog because they want to share with others. They may share their opinions, rants on particular topics, or news from a holiday. They may even have a professional blog where they share views on their work, or they may have a blog all about their pet. When you’re blogging, you can adopt any persona you like.
This programme is based upon blog entries and during its course you’ll need to write on your own blog about each Thing you complete. Will you want to continue blogging after you’ve finished? You may change your ideas on this throughout the course – let us know what you think.
Watch this short video about what blogs are. (You'll need sound or a set of headphones for this one.)
We will be using blogs to track everyone's progress on the 23 Things course, so your Things for this week are to get your own 23 Things blog up and running.
You will be expected to record your thoughts and experiences and add any ideas you may have on how to use the different Things for yourself or at work.
The posts can be as long or short as you choose or have time for, from a brief summary of what you did and learnt, to a longer consideration of the pros and cons of that particular tool. Then at the end, not only will we be able to see that you have completed all the things, but you will have your own record of your participation.
There are no wrong answers on your blog – these are your opinions, and as long as you’re not rude or defamatory (remember this is a work project, and your blog is public!), anything goes.
You can choose to use any screen name you like (you may prefer to keep yourself anonymous). This name will be posted on your blog, but your “real identity” will not be listed. All participants will be linked to the http://23things-cammedlib.blogspot.com/ blog so as you go along you'll be able to see how everyone else is doing, and comment on and support each other, but you will be as anonymous as you choose to be.
If you already have a blog and would like to use it to record your 23 Things experience rather than setting up a new one then please feel free to do so. However you will still need to register the URL with Isla and please make sure you tag each post consistently as described below.
Your blog is entirely yours to do what you like with other than this - if you get keen and explore further or other tools, feel free to write about those too; or general thoughts as and when they occur to you.
Thing 3 – Create a Blog
Task:
Create a blog
Go to http://www.blogger.com/ and sign in at the top right-hand corner with your Google account username and password.
This will bring you to a sign up for Blogger screen.
Some of the information may already be filled in for you, depending on what you told Google when you signed up for your account, but you will probably have to choose a display name, and you will need to accept the Blogger terms of service.
Screen two is called name your blog, and this is where you pick your blog's title and URL.
The blog title can be anything you like - on this blog it is 23Things@CamMedLib + FollowThat.....
The blog address has to be unique, so you might have to try a few things before you find one that works. You can change both of these later on if you decide you don't like them after all, but be wary of changing your blog address as all links and feeds will break if you do.
Screen three is where you pick the template, ie what your blog will look like. There are a number of standard templates to choose from - pick your favourite! Again you can change this at any time in the future, and if you're feeling adventurous you can customise the templates or upload entirely new ones.
BLOG:
Make your first post
Click on the orange arrow that says 'start blogging', or, if you have logged out and are coming back to your blog, then click on 'new post' by your blog's name on your dashboard (the screen you see when you log in).
This will bring you to the posting screen. Enter a title for the post, and then type your text into the box. There is a toolbar at the top of the box which will allow you to format your text and add links and images.
write an blog entry outlining your impressions of 23 Things so far, and perhaps what you already know about web 2.0. That way when you finish the programme you can look back at yourself at the start and see how much you've learnt.
When you have finished, add 'Thing 3' in the labels box at the bottom. Labels are tags, and you'll learn more about these later on, but for now these are just descriptive keywords for each entry. For each post you make on your 23 Things blog, please make sure to label it 'Thing [?]' for the number of the thing it relates to. This means your posts on each Thing can easily be found. You can add other tags too if you would like to.
When you are all done, click the big, orange publish post button at the bottom of the screen, and your first post is now live!
Your second post: Things 1 and 2 and inserting images
To make sure that your blog is a record of the whole programme, please write a second post about what you learnt last week and your thoughts on start pages.
As the programme goes on, it would be a great idea to add screenshots of the various sites to your blog posts, so try this out by inserting a screenshot of your iGoogle page as an image in this post.
If you don't know how to make screenshots, there's some instructions below, or look in the Hints & Tips
Make sure your browser is open and the RSS feeds are showing and maximised on your screen, then press [Ctrl] and [PrtSc or Print Screen] (on the same line as the F keys on your keyboard), and then press [Ctrl]+[c]Now open an image editing program (Paint will do) and paste the image in ([Ctrl]+[v]. Save the image to your computer (perhaps in My Documents/ My Pictures) and give it a name you'll recognise so that you can upload it to Blogger.
To add images, click on the image icon in the toolbar on the posting page (to the right of the 'link' button), which will bring up a box for you to upload your image.
Don't forget to tag the post 'Thing 1' and 'Thing 2' in the labels box before you publish it!
Extra task (optional
try adding different gadgets to your layout (perhaps a fish tank, or list of favourite links, or change the archive list)
Thing 4 – register and search
Task:
email Isla (ilk21@cam.ac.uk) with the address of the blog (www.???.blogspot.com). It will be added to the list of participating blogs on http://23things-cammedlib.blogspot.com/
Go to http://www.google.co.uk/ and open “more”. Pick blogs from the list of options. Search for a blog on a topic that interests you.
BLOG:
Write a blog entry including a link to the blog you found with a sentence or 2 saying why you chose it.
iGoogle lets you create a webpage for yourself, so that wherever you’re working, on whatever computer, you’ll be able to login to your own space to get the links and tools you find useful.
Watch this movie to see how easy it is to customise it to contain the links, tools you want, and to look the way you prefer.
consider the difference between iGoogle and these other tools
Thing 2 – gadgets/ widgets
Just having an iGoogle page isn’t enough, you’ve got to populate it with tools and toys.
Task:
add 5 widgets to your iGoogle page (you can add a pubmed search box, fun things like horoscopes or interesting quotes, or a fish bowl)
click on 'Add stuff' and browse by categories (on the left-hand side), see what's popular by clicking on 'Most users', what's new by clicking on 'Newest' or use the search box.
As well as using the 23 Things format to give an introduction to some new tools, we're eager to improve the team work of the library staff.
To do this, we think it would help to learn more about what we each do. But who's got time for work shadowing?
Instead, we thought that tracking processes would be more useful - how does a book get from the supplier to our shelves? What's involved in getting an inter-library loan from another library?
We've integrated "rest" weeks into the format, so there's an opportunity to catch up on the tasks set in 23Things, but also to learn from colleagues what their part in:
the processing of books,
the processing of journals,
inter-library loan requests from our readers, and from other libraries
reader registration and
responding to complex reader enquiries
Each of these tasks is carried out by a particular combination of staff, allowing great expertise to develop. But there is also the danger of silos being created, whereby we lose sight of the impact our contribution has on the next step in the process.
Each member of staff who carries out one step in any of the processes outlined above will give a brief overview to their colleagues, and then we'll move on to the next step as we follow that book to the shelf, follow that journal to the shelf, that article request to the reader and so on.
This blog supports the Web 2.0 professional development programme for the staff of the Medical Libary of Cambridge University.
Cam23 is a "similar but different" programme which will be delivered to other libraries@Cambridge.
This is a "rest week" where there are no new Things. You can use this week to catch up with any of the first 7 things, or enjoy the break!
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