Feed me!!!

I haven't had much chance to do any Libraries 2.0 for the last couple of weeks, other more pressing tasks were demanding my time. It also didn't help that RSS feeds were giving me some trouble, and it's difficult to perservere with something like that when your time is short. I'm also think that sometimes the best way to figure something out is to put it away and stop trying to figure it out. When you come back to it, you can then look at it with fresh eyes and give it another crack when the frustration has worn off. :)

It also gave me a chance to listen to what other people have done and how they got over the same hurdles.

So now, a good couple of weeks after setting up my bloglines account, I've finally got my feeds linked to my blog. Still not sure they're 100% right but I'm sure I'll figure it out/

Lightbulb moment!

Ok, so I've been thinking some more about Bloglines and this RSS thing and I think it could be more helpful than I first thought.

There are so many work documents that get sent backwards and forwards via email that clog up your inbox and are often out of date before you even open them. They also get sent to everyone, even if they are not relevant as its usually better to send it to people that don't need it than to risk missing someone who does.

Some of the key ones are things like our Telephone listings (which are forever changing as staff play maternity leave induced musical chairs/posiitions), Rosters and meeting agendas.

With the RSS module last week floating around in my brain, today those thoughts mingled with ideas I've been having about how to use Google Docs which I discovered when I was registering for this very blog.

With Google Docs, we can share and publish documents created using Excel, Word or Powerpoint (or create them directly in Google Docs). They can even be published to the web which would mean they could be easily accessed via our Intranet.

As our old handwritten rosters have recently been converted to an Excel spreadsheet maybe we could use Google Docs to access them rather than have them emailed to all staff. We'd then be able to access the most up-to-date rosters, see who is due to replace us on desk, locate other staff more easily and we could all access it electronicaly from our desks to save the inevitable treks to the noticeboard to find out when we were expected out the front.

As we all now know, or are in the process of learning, how to use RSS, we could set it up so we only have to check the roster when there are changes. Managers based at different sites could all access the roster to make changes without things having to be reprinted or manually updated.

Our IT officer in charge of the intranet thinks its a good idea, now I just have to convince the Powers that Be when it comes to rostering that it will make their lives easier.

Probably should make sure I've got the hang of this RSS stuff as if it's my idea, I can expect they'll ask me how to do it :)

I walk the (blog)line(s)

I've now set up a bloglines account to help keep track of sites that I visit regularly.

At the moment it's mostly everyone else's Libraries 2.0 blogs so I can see who is motoring on if I get stuck and need some help.

Can't really think of what else I'd need to keep track of as I don't necessarily think you need to be constantly reminded of what everyone else out there is up to.

Life's gotta have some mystery doesn't it?