Midlands Conference: Blogs, RSS and other Web 2.0 tools.

I want to share some of my personal experiences with Web 2.0 tools at the conference in the hopes that the attendees will find some resources worthy of their time and attention, particularly Blogs, RSS, LibraryThing and Delicious. Many of the resources can be embedded in your blog for easy access.

Once you decide which of the many available RSS readers you wish to use, subscribe to RSS Feeds that you are interested in. I use Google Reader so that I can access my RSS Feeds anywhere that I can access the Internet. You can search for Blogs on topics that you are interested in using Google's Blog Search, or simply subscribe to sites that you've already bookmarked and return to frequently. Google Reader also has an Web Accessibitly Initiative - Accessible Rich Internet Application (WAI - ARIA) interface for the Google Reader.

I then set up my own blog using Google's Blogger. I've added gadgets and links to my LibraryThing account as well as my Delicious account.

I've used my blog as a way to share links and information with our member librarians, particularly those who've attended our Web 2.0 classes.

Organize your the Web 2.0 tools, so that you can easily find them by embedding them in your blog or iGoogle page, or include the links to them in your Delicious account, while deciding whether to make them public or private.

The quickest way to learn about RSS (a.k.a. Real Simple Syndication) is to listen to or view CommonCraft's YouTube Video.