RSS and me!

RSS feeds are another of the many communication tools we can utilize on a daily basis, another avenue for us to stay current with one another and our interests. That sounds all well and good, lots of useful bits of information delivered to our virtual doorstep everyday, but I certainly can foresee a downside to all this.

The Not So Useful Bits:
Starting out I had no shortage of websites with feeds to subscribe too, after all I spend a "healthy" portion of my spare time reading a variety of content online. But if I were to go through and fill out a feeds list with every website I visit for movie news, upcoming books, graphic novels and comics, political news and economy updates, history factoids and words of the day, the latest thing NASA is working on, updates on when I can place an order for that flying car being developed by Terrafugia...well I think you get the picture without me going on forever that I'd be hit upside the head with more updates than the spam I find in my junk mail folder. May I enjoy browsing these websites over the course of the week and don't really need up to the minute information on them all, is that so wrong?

The Useful Bits:
There is a way to deal with all those incoming updates that threaten to bury us all and structure that long list of website into something useful. FOLDERS! After adding seven different feeds to my account on Bloglines I found myself already feeling the need to start placing my various feeds into folders based on their respective subject matter. Now rather than a hap hazard list of websites I have an orderly set of headings that I can browse by.

Also in theory I could see RSS feeds being useful for KCLS, if tech and event updates were posted on a staff/system blog, rather than sent en mass via email, staff could monitor whats new via RSS feeds. Our patrons as well could receive updates about upcoming events or new materials added to the catalog that fall under a subject/author feed they have subscribed to.

The Wrap Up:
With careful selection of feeds and then distributing them into folders or as I like to think of them, subject channels, you will have created a personalized news service that's all yours. Of course you may also enjoy visiting all those various websites and seeing what all they have to offer, and that is OK too. I doubt that I will be condensing my web browsing down to one long RSS feed list anytime soon but may well continue to use feed readers to monitor updates from some select sources.