Matar a tu lector RSS (English in previous post)

Este artículo de Farhad Manjoo, periodista tecnológico de la revista Slate, es sobre los lectores RSS y como son innecesarios. Es decir, que el escritor ha encontrado una manera de seguir todos sus sitios preferidos sin usar ningún lector RSS. Me divertí mucho leyendolo. Aunque he usado Google Reader y My Yahoo! durante unos años, nunca he sido una usuaria habitual. Normalmente, los ignoro; a veces, me dan un sentimiento desgradable de dejar mis responsabilidades, de ser floja, y convierten algo que debe ser divertido - encontrar cosas nuevas y interesantes en la Web - en una tarea tan aburrida como ver mi e-mail de trabajo (cuando tenía trabajo).

La estrategia de Manjoo es muy simple: organizar sus marcadores dentro del navegador según cuantas veces a la semana los lee, y usar el botón medio del raton para abrirlos en pestañas diferentes. (Si no sabes lo que pasa cuando abres una enlace con el botón medio, hazlo. Te esperaré.)

Mi problema con RSS siempre ha sido así: ya sé que sitios quiero visitar. Sé que sitios voy a visitar. Voy a recordar un sitio que tiene información interesante y útil. ¿Porque, entonces, necesito un lector RSS para darme la lata? Hasta ahora, he utilizado Delicious y la historia de mi navegador para ir a donde quiero, pero voy a utilizar la estrategia de Manjoo a ver como funciona.

Kill Your RSS Reader

This article by Slate magazine's tech guy, Farhad Manjoo, is all about how RSS readers, championed by many as the only way to stay up-to-date on all your fave blogs and sites, are really unnecessary, not to mention annoying. I loved reading it. I have designed two RSS pages, on Yahoo! and on Google, over the past couple years, but I've never become a dedicated user of them. At best, I ignore them; at worst, they give me an unpleasant feeling of slackery and laziness, making something that should be fun - finding cool info on the web - as much of a chore as checking my work email (well, back when I had a job).

Manjoo's strategy for keeping up with the Joneses is a more sophisticated version of what I already do: he organizes the bookmarks in his browser according to how often he visits a site, and then opens them all up in the same window using the middle mouse button. (If you don't know what happens when you click on a link with the middle mouse button, go try it. I'll wait.)

My problem with RSS readers has always been: I already know what sites I want to visit. I already know what sites I'm going to visit. If a site has useful and interesting information, I'm unlikely to forget about it, so why do I need an RSS reader nagging me to do it? Until now I've been relying more on Delicious and my browser history to get me where I want to go, but I'm going to try this bookmark strategy. Let's see how it works.

Notas de una reunión con Nieves González en el 15 de abril 2009 (scroll down for English)

★IWETEL★

Doñana - Director de Biblioteca

*bib.us.es → más noticias

[friendfeed]


shelving: colocación y prestamo
and
circ.

Ayudante de circulación -
Shelving + Circ. Asst.

suministrar libros (mejor que recuperar)
deliver books

tareas encuadernación menor
-minor book repairs

Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
online university.

licenciaturas 2nd
→documentación

Master
Sociado de Information y...

"Master Online en Documentación Digital"


Oposiciones:

• Auxiliares
• Tecnicos
• Ayudantes
• Facultativo
  

NOTAS EN ESPAÑOL

Nieves González, Bibliotecaria de la Universidad de Sevilla y profesora de Biblioteconomía de la Universidad Pablo de Olavide de Sevilla, amablemente aceptó quedar conmigo el 15 de abril. Tenía muchas ganas de conocerla y de preguntarle muchas cosas sobre documentación en España y sobre todo en Andalucia, y no me falló.

Estabamos de acuerdo que me beneficiaría con un curso español de algunos aspectos de documentación, y hablamos de la Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, que ofrece una licenciatura de segundo ciclo en documentación, y del Master Online en Documentación Digital de la Universitat Pompeu Fabra. Nieves también mencionó los cursos de Master y Experto en E-Learning de la Universidad de Sevilla. Y actualmente estoy considerando estas opciónes.

Además hablamos de la importancia de tener una identidad digital. Nieves me introdució a friendfeed, una herramienta para seguir las actividades de sus amigos y compañeros en linea, en Facebook, Twitter, etc. La verdad es que aún no he decidido usar esta herramienta; todavía no tengo una cuenta Twitter (aunque considero hacer una casi cada día) y es bastante fácil seguir a mis amigos en Facebook, y seguir blogs en Google Reader. ¿Hay alguien en friendfeed? ¡Contadme!

Gracias a Nieves ahora tengo un poco de información sobre las oposiciones para trabajar en una biblioteca, que me dan mucho miedo, por que no las tenemos en Canadá. Me recomendó que me inscribiera en IWETEL, un listserv para documentalistas. Y, por fin, he terminado mi curriculum español con el vocabulario útil que Nieves me dio. ¡Muchisimas gracias, Nieves!


NOTES IN ENGLISH

Nieves González, Librarian at the University of Seville and professor of Library Science at the University of Pablo Olavide, kindly agreed to a meeting with me on the 15th of April. I was eager to meet with her and ask lots of questions about the information professions in Spain, and in Andalusia most of all. She didn't disappoint.

We both agreed that I would benefit from an info-related course in Spanish for vocabulary and practice. I am in desperate need of both. We talked about many courses, among them a graduate program in information studies from the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (an online university), and the Master Online en Documentación Digital of the Universitat Pompeu Fabra. Closer to home, the University of Seville offers courses towards a Master y Experto en E-Learning. I'm still considering these options.

We also spoke of the importance of having a digital identity. This was familiar territory from library school, but nonetheless important to discuss. She introduced me to friendfeed, a tool for following the online activities of your friends and colleagues on various social networking sites. Since I'm still a Twitter holdout (though I think about it daily), I'm not sure if I really need this tool. It's easy enough to follow people on Facebook, and blogs can be followed in Google reader. I guess I'll think it over. If any of you are on friendfeed, please let me know!

Thanks to Nieves I finally have some information on the Oposiciones, scary Spanish government exams that you have to take to work in any public or government library here. She recommended that I subscribe to IWETEL, a listserv for information professionals. And, I was finally able to finish my Spanish curriculum thanks to her vocabulary help. Thanks so much, Nieves!

Salamanca Public Library

I recently returned from a camping trip to the interior of Spain with my husband and two friends. We visited Toledo, Segovia, Avila, and Salamanca. Salamanca is known for its university, which has produced many famous minds. Among the must-sees in Salamanca, or so say the guidebooks, is a structure called the "casa de las conchas", a building decorated with shells -- not real ones, though. We eventually found it, and it turns out that its other name is "Biblioteca Publica".





According to the library's website, this library was inaugurated in 1993. Check out the entrace hall and weep.

I wanted to take some pictures of the interior of the library, but the librarians weren't too thrilled at the sight of my camera. I can't blame them, really: the atmosphere inside was so quiet and studious I felt like a jerk just walking around. I can report that they have made wonderful use of the space. Lots of windows and simple, modern design made everything feel light, spacious and airy.

Read more about the Casa de las Conchas on Wikipedia (Spanish only).

wordle UPDATED

I just discovered Wordle, which is a free tool that can make word clouds for you from any blog, from your delicious account, or just from words you submit yourself. Here is a cloud made from my delicious tags. Note: "glis634" was the number of my web design class in library school. My final project for the same course included a lot of photographs. And I currently work as an esl tutor just to put food on the table. Update: Here's a cloud from this blog too.

Further update: Boy, am I late to the bandwagon on this one. My friend Amy linked to this months ago. And a funny thing: I remember seeing it. Anyway, enjoy!

I am a Shover and Maker 2009!

So read all about it.

discoveries

1. In Spain, the information professions are known as documentación, and include biblioteconomía (librarianship), archivística (archival studies) and museología (museology?) as well as, according to Wikipedia, documentación itself. That confuses me a lot, but I'm working on it.

2. There are a whole crapload of professional organizations here. The ones that seem most relevant to me at the moment are the Asociación Andaluza de Documentalistas and the Asociación Andaluza de Bibliotecarios, because they are specific to the autonomous community I live in. There are lots of other ones though, like ANABAD, FESABID and SEDIC. FESABID is having a conference in Zaragoza in May which I think I should attend, broken Spanish notwithstanding.

3. Info professionals in Spain don't find my story quite as impressive as I do.

4. It's unlikely that I'll find a job very quickly. I suppose the best thing to do would be to make myself known to some professionals around here, so that I don't seem to have come out of nowhere when a good opportunity actually comes up?