Blogs and Blog Readers

Blogs and Blog Readers

There is so much information available in today's day and age, so many websites that we love to visit, but there's so much going on in our daily lives. Blog readers make your life much simpler by putting all your favorite blogs in one place. Whew! I'm sure you probably feel a similar sense of relief, as did I when I found out about blog readers, but it's not over yet. With over ten RSS (Really Simple Syndication) apps to choose from, picking the best one for you may be a little tricky.

My Favorite RSS

After searching through the list, and playing around with a few sites I choose feedly.com as my primary RSS. I consider myself tech savvy, but I still enjoy simplicity. I feel that the layout on feedly is easy to understand, the menu on the left side is easy to navigate through, and there's a free version available. In addition, you are able to share things through Facebook, Twitter, send emails, and connect to OneNote, Evernote, or GooglePlus.  One of my favorite features included a save for later tab, so that you could revisit posts that you didn't have time to read at that moment or that you would like to refer to in the future.  

Blogs You Might Want To Follow

After setting up my feedly account. I started added all of the blogs I follow concerning the LMC. These are a few of the blog that I follow. They are not ranked in any specific order. Remember that you can also create other collections to make pages of similar subjects.

#1 A Media Specialist's Guide To The Internet

Julie Greller’s blog contains a plethora of information that isn’t only useful for librarians, but teachers as well. I like the way this blog is organized into categories: grade levels, authors, ESLl, graphics, history, content areas, etc., versus a list of posts separated by dates.

#2 Blue Skunk Blog

Doug Johnson’s most recent posts have explored the five principles of library ethics in an untraditional way. He doesn’t just list the principles, but gives examples, scenarios, and opinions of different things dealing with the principles. His blog is very opinion based, but entertaining and helpful.

#3 The Annoyed Librarian

This is probably one of the most untraditional blogs, but that’s what made it stand out to me. The author, blogs about current events that are happening concerning the library and gives her opinion. For example, people who you the library’s wifi to download pornography, unhappy ALA state chapters, and people who want fines. There are also pages fro reviews, news, events, tech, webcasts, etc.

#4 YALSAblog

What stood out to me the most about the YALSA blog are the posts about Makerspaces. Makerspaces are a bit of a hot topic right now, and everyone wants to know how to run them effectively, and budget accordingly. This blog answers those questions along with any additional questions anyone may have about Makerspaces while giving updates on events and wonderful things that are happening with YALSA and ALA.

#5 BAM Book Reviews

This blog was created by Katie and a co-contributor, Briana. They are both college students that write book reviews. The small summary that is most of the time on the back or inside the cover of the book is provided first and then their reviews follow. Since I will be a middle school librarian, I think that it’s neat that they only review young adult fiction novels. You can also send in a request for books you would like them to review.

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