The reference wiki

One application for a library wiki is to set up a reference query wiki.

When students come to the reference desk with their search queries, I often wonder whether other librarians have had to field similar questions. If I encounter a query from an different subject area to law, I am not always sure that I am using the best search strategy. It would be helpful to be able to look up a reference query wiki to see if others have also encountered the same question, and to learn how they dealt with it, including which databases they used, and how successful they thought their search was.

Not only would reference librarians be able to improve their searches in unfamiliar subject areas, but people could add comments and hints on how to target a search better. This type of wiki would be an enormous help to librarians new to reference work.

This would be a collaborative means of improving our search practices and delivering better service to our students who come with reference queries.

RSS feeds continued

Set up an RSS feed in Bloglines
It took some tweaking, a little thinking outside the box, and an element of dogged determination, but in the end persistence won out. I am finding that, rather than providing a step by step procedure, on occassion, the 23 things instuctions merely point in the general direction. It therefore requires little leaps of imagination, intuition, or, in a few unexpected instances, commonsense to figure out where I am supposed to go next. However, there is now a database search RSS feed silently growing in my Bloglines Newsfeeder along with all the other feeds which are inexorably increasing in number.

What I have learned
In the interests of time, choose the full text option for a database search before selecting it as an RSS feed.

Questions

How useful is an RSS feed for a database search?
For researchers: excellent.
For Lecturers: good.
For students: fair, depending on how early they begin their assignment research.
RSS feeds on the whole: they have great potential.
Where can I see RSS feeds being used?
RSS feeds are useful for anyone who has an area of interest where they want to be kept informed of the latest developments or research.
Do I think this technology would engage students?
If marketed correctly it would. I think the library should sell the concept to students. One way of doing this is by including the technology in our Information Literacy classes.

RSS feeds

Discovering RSS feeds.
I did indeed discover RSS feeds. The instructions were easy enough to follow and I went mad subscribing to a whole lot of fantastic looking feeds that I have subsequently had scant opportunity to look at. Not only that, I have had the devil of a time trying to figure out where my blog was so that I could do my belated weekly entry. Anyway, I am now merrily blogging away.

As for my personal RSS feed subscription, the number of feeds is growing nicely. In particular, my understanding of management practices is increasing by the day thanks to my Dilbert feed -- a valuable source of professional insight I am finding.

Library blogs

Beginning to blog
I breathe a sigh of relief that I have made it this far. This is week three of Web 2.0 and I have not begun my week 2 assignment. I kept telling myself that I would begin once I had finished my Law tutorial classes. Then I told myself I'd begin once the Camtasia clips of the Law tutorial classes were rendered. Next, I convinced myself that I'd definitely make a start once I'd placed the Camtasia clips in the L drive folders, written the the scripts, composed descriptions to go into the guide web page, and posted the videos and descriptions off to Maureen to link to the guide web page. Finally Maureen and Agnes told me to just get on with it. So here I am, blogging ... or babbling. The point is, I've begun my great Web 2.0 journey, and though I have a way to go to catch up with the quick starters, I am now in the race. My goal now will be to gather momentum and complete the course on time ... not an inconsiderable challenge as far as I am concerned.