[WEB4LIB] RE: Library blog question

[K.G. Schneider]

> If you expect your blog to be large, I guess an RSS feed for each
> category is sensible. But, part of the fun of blogs is the serendipity
> of reading stuff you had no idea about and having a feed for preselected
> categories kinda defeats the serendipity factor. Just as it does in
> library OPACS. :)

It all depends on how you define blogging--is it commentary-style blogging
or are you using blogs/RSS to deliver specific types of content? If the
latter, your users may not want serendipity. They may want just the bananas
and the pickles. That's how I get many news-related feeds: I subscribe to
the major categories I follow. 

We dearly want to be able to add RSS feeds for each of the 15 major
categories and "roll-your-own-feed" capabilities for lii.org, so that new
and newly-announced entries (what we call "retreads") can be retrieved by
category. That would support users who want us to just "bring it on!" and
those who say "just the bananas and the pickles, please." 

Even in OPACs, there is much, much I don't want. Ever. As information turns
from a trickle to a river to an ocean, helping fine-tune what users get may
become a big part of our role.

Karen G. Schneider
kgs at bluehighways.com