RSS Feeds and blogs and wikis
What is a blog? What do I do with blogs?
Phoebe’s note about blogs and wikis:
Hi!
The difference between the two is really a question of organization. A
blog is very time-oriented -- more recent entries are at the top, and
it's easy to see what is recent versus what is old. Things are
searchable, but the default organization is time (i.e. by month) and old
content
scrolls off the screen to be replaced by new content. There's a real
sense that -- like a news ticker -- things are posted and then they go
away.
On the other hand, a wiki is not like that. It is a "flat" resource,
without directory structure, and not organized by time. Very old content
could be right next to new content on a page. A wiki is a way to
dynamically build documents with many contributors. New text can replace
old
text, but it doesn't make it go away.
Wikis are better for collaborative writing, especially collaborative
writing done in bits and pieces. If you want the librarians to share
ideas on how to work on assignments -- i.e. hard reference questions, where
one person might know of one resource and another person another, then
a wiki is best. Also, if you want to be able to change the entries a
lot, a wiki is better. But if you want to have "alerts", or news that
can be fed into people's RSS readers, then a blog is better.
It also depends on authorship. I think a blog is better with just a few
authors, whereas a wiki is better suited to a large group. If it's for
the public, a blog can also appear more professional as each entry is
"published" and doesn't change (and blog css skins are often pretty).
Access control is also often easier in blogs -- many wikis are designed
to be completely open, which can be upsetting to some folks. (There are
some corporate-designed wikis out there though where access control is
easier to determine than in say, MediaWiki, where it is notoriously
difficult).
If you want a searchable resource, though, I think a wiki is the
ultimate tool for building a small, ad-hoc content management system.
One is not necessarily harder to install than the other. PBwiki is a
hosted wiki, so you don't have to do anything, but there are lots of easy
wiki packages to install. You might take a look at WikiMatrix to
compare different wiki packages:
http://www.wikimatrix.org/
Or if you decide to go that route I can give you a few recommendations
and what I know about different packages.
Re: having a blog post to a wiki -- that may be possible. I don't know!
Would have to look into it :)
hope this helps... I'm glad to talk more about specific wiki pros &
cons with you as well.
best,
phoebe
----> Phoebe,
MINE to do:
Really Simple Syndication…. See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rss
where it begins saying:
“RSS is a family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated
content such as blog entries, news headlines, and podcasts.[2] An RSS
document (which is called a "feed" or "web feed"[3] or "channel") contains
either a summary of content from an associated web site or the full text. RSS
makes it possible for people to keep up with web sites in an automated
manner that can be piped into special programs or filtered displays.[3]”
Pubmed sends UPDATES as emails and RSS feeds. Take you pick!
HARVEST and Melvyl – emails and RSS feeds…
What do you like? Which do you prefer? Why?
Bloglines… gets me all my rss feeds…
Firefox - - ???? in office…. At ref desk??
Create SDI in Harvest…
Email…
Or
RSS – to do an RSS:
Do search
Go to History
Click on search to be RSS’d
Fill in title and interval…
GO…
AND THEN…..???? – go to My Account – and then go to SDI/Alerts…
AND THEN cut the RSS feed URL and then PASTE into your feed reader…
VOILA
Blogger.com – and blogs… to create rss feeds
SMART SITE… for your Podcasts…. (and/or vodcasts and/or rss feeds for
word docs, pdf’s, etc… ANY TYPE OF FILE… but – NOT ALL
READERS WILL TAKE IN DOCS, PDF’S etc….
What else do you want/get – using iTunes:
Npr broadcasts… news, and lots more….
UC pod and vod casts… from:
And RSS feeds are the basis for putting out Podcasts and/or Vodcasts, etc…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podcasts
How do you get podcasts/vodcasts? – Bloglines works nicely for all formats
– and iTunes works nicely for the audio-visual stuff…. That pod/vodcasts
are known for.
You do NOT need an Ipod. For radio/music – I use my 1GB mp3 player.
Other such players should work well, too.