I set up a Bloglines account a while ago when I was trying to learn about RSS. Its a great way for me to keep up with websites that I like on just about any subject. I have way more than 10 feeds: lots of library and web/library 2.0 feeds as well as some for technology, cooking and genealogy.
I have several posts about RSS. Just click on the RSS category in the Tag Cloud and it will give you a list of all posts I’ve tagged with the RSS category. (Yikes – lots of jargon. Click on my RSS link or look at the links at the upper right of my blog and click on RSS. There’s a great video you should watch if you want a very simple explanation of RSS.)
I learned how to add a “Subscribe to Bloglines” button to my blog. People can use this to subscribe to the RSS feed for my blog. Why they’d want to is a whole different thing, but at least I learned how to do this! BTW, it only involves adding a text widget to a WordPress blog. Bloglines creates the HTML for the button using your feed URL. Then you just copy and paste the HTML into the text widget.
Its even easier in Blogger which many BCPLers are using for their blogs for 23 Things.
- Log into your blog.
- Look at the addressbar for your blog. Example: http://baltimorecountyparticipants.blogspot.com/. Write down the name of your blog that appears where baltimorecountyparticipants is in this address.
- Click on Customize (upper right hand corner of your blog) and then choose the tab for Template. Add a Page Element for “HTML/Javascript.” Copy and paste the following except replace baltimorecountyparticipants with the name of your blog.
<a href=”http://www.bloglines.com/sub/http://baltimorecountyparticipants.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default” mce_href=”http://www.bloglines.com/sub/http://baltimorecountyparticipants.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default”>
<img src=”http://static.bloglines.com/images/lang/default/sub_modern2.gif” mce_src=”http://static.bloglines.com/images/lang/default/sub_modern2.gif” border=”0″ alt=”Subscribe with Bloglines” />
</a>
Since I was creating widgets, I added one for the books I’m reading. That seems to be the “thing to do” for a lot of library staff bloggers I’ve found (not necessarily at BCPL).
I learned how to post a public link to my bloglines account but why would anyone be interested? And don’t they have enough to read?!
Me: Learning Library 2.0 
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