Yikes....
Google Blog Search sounded like a neat thing, until I tried to use it. At first, I found it a little (dare I say) underwhelming? I'm not exactly sure what I was expecting off the bat, but the intial search results weren't it. Maybe I wasn't using the right search terms, but I found it frustrating to get matches that weren't what I was looking for. A lot of the matches, though they contained my keywords, weren't relevent. It was hard for me to find storytime ideas, which I'll be needing soon. And Google's supposed to have all the answers, right? ;) Finally I just started searching with different terms, such as "youth services", etc. Those netted better results, and turned me into a bit of a Google Blog Search believer. After a while, it became fun to see what I could find.
I saved a few blogs to my Bloglines account, and hopefully I'll find time to read them. They did look promising and interesting. Bloglines itself seems like a nice, useful site. The cool thing about it is that all updates for blogs you're following are right there on one site. This is much better than saving individual blogs to a favorites menu -- and forgetting to check them. :-) The concept of logging into one site to see all updates to blogs you're following is very nice and really would save time over checking individual sites.
Honestly though, I'm unsure how much time I'll have to really get into the blogs and keep up with them at this time, but I am really hoping that sometime soon I can devote an hour or so a day to reading udpates on some of these blogs, as they do look like they would be both interesting and useful. This activity was fun to see what was out there and to see how many other public libraries and individuals keep blogs that might be of use to others, and not just everyday diary/journal types of blogs, which are what my friends and I keep.
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Hi Erin,
ReplyDeleteOnce you've set up a Bloglines account, it's a snap to add a new blog to it. Just copy and paste the URL. I agree with you on Google Blog Search (but that seemed the best way for us to get you started). Now whenever you come across an intriguing blog you can add it to Bloglines.
What's nice about Bloglines is if you don't get to it for awhile, the posts stay there. You can see at a glance which ones haven't been read.
Blogs are becoming much more than personal journals these days. They are often a source of news and a way of connecting with people around the globe who share your interests.