Keeping Current in 40 Minutes or Less....Guaranteed!
Steven M. Cohen
PubSub Concepts, Inc
631-645-4516
AOL IM - NYlibrarian
Skype - stevenmcohen
“To stay ahead, you must have your next idea waiting in the wings." - Rosabeth Moss Cantor
“Keeping a little ahead of conditions is one of the secrets of business.” - Charles Schwab
“It’s better to be ahead of the curve than to be behind it.” - Me
What is Currency and Why Should I Care?
- Knowing what is going on in your profession.
- Professional Development
- Reference Work
- Find new reference sources
- Become an advocate for your profession
- Competing with other professions
- Competing with Search Engines
- Educating our patrons
- Becoming a better reference worker
- See what other librarians are doing
- Keeps you out of trouble
Ways to Keep Current
- Trade Publications
- Listservs
- Web Site Monitoring Software
- Weblogs
- RSS Feeds and News Aggregators
Trade Publications
(Pros)
- Arrive like Clockwork
- Professional Looking
- Good “Reference Desk” Reading
- Articles written by pros
- Have articles not found online
- Accessible
(Cons)
- Outdated? (not current enough)
- Expensive
- Circulation among staff
- Too many of them
My Advice
- Pick 2 Trade Journals
- Read the TOC First
- Pick Your Favorites (1 or 2)
- Photocopy the articles
- Read them at your leisure
- Don’t waste time browsing
E-Lists
(Pros)
- Lively discussion
- Ask questions, provide feedback
- Great way to network
- Find librarians with similar interests
- Can be very broad or narrow in scope
- Can subscribe in multiple formats
(Cons)
- Flames
- Too much to read
- Discussion doesn’t relate to the readers interests
- Can pile up in the inbox
- More often than not, posts will not be interesting
My Advice
- Subscribe to 3 listservs, tops
- Subscribe to the digest
- Read the TOC
- If nothing looks interesting, delete
- If this happens for 2 months, unsubscribe.
- Purge!
Web Site Monitoring Software
- Will notify you of changes to web sites
- Software or Online
- Highlight changes
- Filtering By Keywords
Tools
Blog Intro
- Do I need to do this?
- Yes? No?
- OK
Blogs are good for libraries...but RSS is better
- Marketing the librarian
- Updates to new databases/changes in databases
- New books
- Internal communication for reference desk.
- Yes, this can be internal - In most cases, they are.
- All blogs come with an RSS Feed
Someone ask me this question:
- Why is this better than an e-mail newsletter?
Legal Considerations
RSS 101 - Let's Talk
Library-Related RSS Feeds
Legal Feeds
Government
Can't get everything via RSS
Customize Customize Customize.
Libraries are getting hip to RSS Technology
Social Software
- Weblogs & Syndicated Web Feeds
- SEC Filings
- Press Releases
- Newsgroups
- Community Lists