Taming the Infoclutter at CTLA!

Tomorrow's road trip (or, more precisely, train trip) is to fair New Haven, CT to speak at the Connecticut Library Association's annual conference. This is my first invited speaking engagement (based on my Cybertour back at Internet Librarian 2007) and though it's an old familiar topic, I'm nervous.

I'm also a vain creature who's found a natural home in the spotlight, so I'm sure I'll be fine.

All of which is to preface the notes for the presentation:

Taming the Online Infoclutter: Using RSS to Keep Current and Manage Overload

Enjoy!

Infoclutter Presentation at CMRLS

A quick post to put up the link for today's "Taming the Infoclutter" workshop at the Central Mass Library Region.

Taming the Online Infoclutter: Using RSS to Keep Current and Manage Overload
November 18, 2008
CMRLS

Enjoy!

Taming the Online Infoclutter presentation links

Just to have both versions of the presentation in one place:

Workshop for Boston Region

Cybertour from Internet Librarian 2007

One week of vacation and one week of holiday work seems to have added up to no posts for much of November. I guess I know what my New Year's resolution will be, eh?

Wednesday...and an attack of nerves

In theory, I was going to go to at least part of the two morning sessions, but the attack of nerves I inexplicably developed before my Cybertour short-circuited that. Which was annoying, because it meant I missed Mary Ellen Bates and Casey Bisson talking about their favorite and best topics. Rats.

The Cybertour itself went fabulously, with about 25 folks in the audience. A few came up afterwards to tell me how useful it was to get all of those organizing tips all in one place, which was the whole point. Of course, I managed to get the best feedback possible: "I really wish I could stay for your talk because it sounds great. Could I have your contact information?" Neat.

Remember, if you want to see everything I've done on the Infoclutter presentation, just click the tag over there on the right or follow this link. The slides are there, along with some ancillary material.

I did attend the afternoon sessions, but neither one was quite what I was looking for. (Here are the notes.) I've heard Chad Boeninger and Paul Rival both speak before, and their last session was a quick tour through the various free tech tools they use with their students. What they did that others didn't was a walk-through and demo of Jing, a downloadable multimedia snip-and-share program that seems like a breeze to use. It's definitely up high on the sandbox list for me, my copious free time of course.

The last session was originally about visual display search engines (neat!) but it was replaced by a lecture on meta data and topic maps. Interesting, but not what I was looking for.

And thus ended the conference. I hopped on the Monterey Airbus back to San Jose and slept the whole way home. Overall, it was a less heady experience than IL2006 had been, but in the year between I've gone from being amazed at what librarians are doing to being excited to see what I can help make happen myself.

But not today. Today I rest, and tomorrow...I'll see what comes. Enjoy!

A quick note regarding my InfoClutter slides

To Gwen and everyone else who's tried to click through to my Taming the Infoclutter slides since I posted about the presentation on the 18th: I botched the link for the Google Docs presentation. It's now fixed and should be accessible. Please let me know if you have any problems.

That'll teach me to not check my links. I usually do. I blame the elves.

InfoClutter is Tamed!

All right, that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but the first presentation of my "Taming the Online InfoClutter" workshop was a rousing success. Six librarians joined me for two jam-packed hours of RSS feeds, organizing schema and discussions of generational differences (computer generations, that is!). I had a lovely time and thus far all the feedback has been outstanding.

As promised, the slides for the presentation are here. I used Google Docs Presentation software and found it to be an excellent basic presentation tool. No, it doesn't have the bells and whistles of PowerPoint, but the ability to pull up my slides anywhere I can get net makes it indispensible.

Also, use the infoclutter tag over on the right there to find everything I've written on this topic. I've linked to a number of articles on optimizing your RSS reader and finding ways to cut through the noise.

Now, on to Internet Librarian and finding some way to take 2 solid hours and pare it down to 13 minutes...yikes!

More resources for InfoClutter

A great collection of articles on staying on top and organized.

Books Consulted (yes, really!)

The Personal Efficiency Program, Kerry Gleeson, 2nd ed.
Time Management for Dummies, Jeffrey J. Mayer, 2nd ed.
Take Back Your Time, Jan Jasper.
Getting Organized at Work, Dawn B. Sova, PhD with Robert Gregor.

Now that I'm up against the wire, that'll probably be it for new resources. On to the main event!

List of resources for Taming the Infoclutter

Somewhat random, but useful stuff. Also, a work in progress.

Do email and RSS just once a day: Generally useful and commonsense advice, Rule 7 & 8 are about RSS, and the comments are full of examples on how other people do it.

Firefox ticker addon: big distraction or useful tool?

Gain Insight into Your Reading Habits w/Google Reader Trends

RSS Brief

"Animal House style" it may not be, but the idea of a "Probation" folder for new feeds is neat.

If you're in a time-sensitive industry, sending your RSS feeds as an SMS message may be the ticket.

Priority vs. Content? Google Reader doesn't make you choose one.

7 Things You Should Know About RSS, from Educause.

Whither thou goest, librarian?

Ah, productivity. I'm so glad to find it again...

And yet, no posts in a month and a half? I guess the short answer is that I did find my productivity, but it largely played out in my paying job and not in these pages. Also, there's been a post brewing that needs out, and it's finally ready.

But first, announcements: In the next two months, I have three professional speaking engagements, two local and one at a national conference!

Tuesday, October 16th: I'll be presenting a two-hour workshop on "Taming the Online Infoclutter: Using RSS to Keep Current and Manage Overload". 10a - 12noon at the Boston Public Library, Training Room. Registration is through the Boston Region.

Wednesday, October 31st: On the last day of Internet Librarian, I'm giving a 15-minute Cybertour on the same topic. 11:30-11:45am in the Exhibitor Hall. (Yes, I'm speaking at a national librarian conference. How excited am I?!?)

Tuesday, November 6th: My second workshop for the Boston Region is "You Can Be the Expert: Helping Library Users with Basic Computer Troubleshooting," a look at how to diagnose what problem your patrons are having and what, if anything, you can do about it. 10a - 12noon at the BPL Training Room. Same registration link as above.

Next up, a post sure to raise some eyebrows and make you think. Ciao!

As promised...it's August and I'm back

Hi, all. My thanks for your patience for the radio silence. But now, the show is over and I'm refocusing my attention on my blog.

To ease myself back in, I'll start off with a couple of links from Bloglines:

Headlines and hotspots in a just a Couple of Minutes. via LibraryStuff

Using LinkedIn productively via the Librarian In Black

You can find me on LinkedIn, by the way ------>

I've also added a couple of titles to the Squidoo list ---->

Ah, productivity. I'm so glad to find it again...

Managing Online InfoClutter with RSS

[A note on these columns: I'm writing for a wide variety of technology comfort levels, and I've only got a standard side of paper to do it in, so I don't tend to get too specific.]

Professional Developments: Taming the Online InfoClutter – Using RSS to Keep Current and Manage Overload

At the May Adult Services meeting, I demonstrated how I manage all of the electronic 'clutter' in my life. As you might have figured out from my previous columns here, there is a tremendous amount of online information published about librarianship today. So far, I've discussed why and some of what we need to keep on top of. This column showcases one example of how.

Whether we get our information from library publications, major news outlets or one of millions of blogs, there are too many sources to keep track of. More and more of these info providers are going electronic, and the latest addition to many web pages is a small orange square with white lines. That square is about to become your best tool in managing infoclutter: it’s a link for an RSS feed of that publication or blog.

RSS feeds allow you to subscribe to the latest posts and articles from a variety of sources, bringing the information to you rather than you having to go find it. You can use a feed reader such as Bloglines or Google Reader or the news section of My Yahoo or My AOL to collect and organize your various feeds. Creating the account usually consists of following the step-by-step instructions; I've found Bloglines to be one of the easier systems to use.

After you set up an account, you can treat your feed reader just like an individualized newspaper. Each feed is a section, and the various articles are contained within. Click on the feed you want to read, then skim down the list of article titles and leads and decide which you want to read in full. I don't read half of the things that come through Bloglines, but I do skim them and pick out the occasional idea or tool to look up later. If you want to save something to read it more thoroughly at another time, you can mark it "Keep New." To save a post on a particular topic, you can create a Clippings file for that subject and Clip and save the post there. There are more advanced features, but these are the most useful ones.

As you start out with reading feeds, I'd recommend one of two paths: 1) choose just a few feeds and get in the habit of reading them, adding more as time passes; or 2) subscribe wildly, and unsubscribe from the ones you’re just not keeping up with. Once again, the important piece is choosing a system that works for you. This is all about your needs and interests, and no one else is going to tell you you’re doing it right or wrong.

As librarians, we know how much information exists in the world, and we know that we can’t possibly keep up with it all. So the goal is to know about the things that interest, motivate and compel you, and to be aware of as much of the rest as you can.

Resources:

Yahoo’s explanation of RSS feeds

A very comprehensive tutorial from Wizard Creek consulting

"Librarians Keeping Up and Making Time" by Emily at the Library Revolution blog

My Bloglines account, for one organizing scheme and blogs to read. If you'd like more information, please feel free to get in touch with me.

Free, online RSS readers:
Bloglines
Google Reader – works through a Google account
NewsGator
NetVibes – a more sophisticated customizable 'start' page
Yahoo Pipes – like NetVibes, but works through a Yahoo account