I know it seems like I'm only talking about RSS these days, but that's because 1) it's beginning to hit a critical mass, 2) I very much believe libraries need to be part of this (if not leading it), and 3) it's on my mind because of my upcoming presentation with Steven Cohen on this topic.

However, it's not just me. Ken Tompkins is thinking about aggregators, too, and he's doing me one better by actually creating some. For his campus, he's currently aggregating NY Times and BBC feeds in one aggregator, Manila sites in a second aggregator, and the feeds from both aggregators into one "meta-aggregator." Ken writes:

"I have just begun to consider rss in college literature teaching.... We have a Frontier server and, of course, I know about the aggregator in both Manila and Radio.

So, I've worked out a way to aggregate our student Manila sites or, at least, the best ones as well as provide a way to aggregate news of interest to Arts & Humanities students....

These are very modest and display nothing important. I just got them working today. They need formatting and a swipe at css. For me, what is important, is that I now have a technique for aggregating sites of any flavor -- faculty, student, major, etc -- and can easily set faculty to creating similar sites for their departments."

Very impressive, Ken! This is another good experiment to watch. Is it my imagination or is education becoming an epicenter of RSS activity? Certainly more than at the BigPubs these days.

Ken describes a setup similar to what I want for Illinois libraries. For our "News Exchange Web Service" (NEWS) grant project, we're going to get four of the twelve Illinois Library Systems blogging with accompanying RSS feeds. We'll also provide individual and group aggregation inter- and intra-System, thereby creating a knowledge exchange system of unparalleled potential for communication. And that's just for starters.

Side note of personal opinion: the new Illinois Library Systems home page should be a blog with an RSS feed!

Aargh! It no longer matters if I have high-speed internet access this week at the Computers in Libraries conference because the laptop isn't back from being repaired anyway. Hopefully I can get the Stowaway keyboard working for my Clie or else I'll have to resort to - gasp - paper for my conference notes. How archaic.

So that means no blogging or news aggregator and minimal email Tuesday through Friday. I'm actually going to have to speak about RSS on Thursday without having seen any for three days!

I'm not sure what's more pathetic - me at a libraries & technology conference without internet access, the fact that none of the hotels around Dupont Circle offer high-speed internet access (let alone WiFi), or the fact that the CIL conference is held at a hotel that doesn't offer any type of high-speed access.

So if you see me at the conference and I'm twitching, it's just a symptom of withdrawal.

Winners of the 2003 Bloggies have been announced, and BookSlut won for "Best Topical Category!"

The Page of Generators

"Steven Savage has the turn of mind that plays with permutations, and has come up with an entire page of generators. Mostly they’re just for fun, or as an aid to imagination for gamers; but a couple of them generated material that would catch my eye in a slush ms. One is the Academic SF Generator (inexplicably filed under character-related generators), which generates fields of study...

Even better is the Action Film Trailer Generator. It’s meant to generate parodic action-movie trailer voiceovers." [Making Light]

One of the great things about RSS aggregators is that they work for any type of site. If the site updates frequently, it's much easier to manage the flow in an aggregator. If the site posts only occasionally, it's easier to read in an aggregator because you're not constantly checking the site for updates. And if a site goes on hiatus, even better because you're pleasantly surprised when it reappears in your aggregator.

But this only works if the RSS feed for the site remains constant. Luckily, others in the blogosphere pick up when that doesn't happen, as evidenced by the fact that Eric Snowdeal noticed that Cam is back online. Apparently he's migrating to Movable Type, so he has a new RSS feed. Change your subscription list accordingly, and welcome back, Cam!

Extend Your Information Seeking Skills With Newsfeeds

"Many people no longer receive a daily newspaper, or even buy one on the way to work. There is more news and more information being fed daily online than a newspaper could hope to print. However, those skills you used each morning for maybe twenty years, scanning the front page just before you race out to work, are still needed, and perhaps need to be refined and updated.

To experience more on the topic of this article you should download the newset of the bunch of Newsreaders and deliver news from Newsfeeds minute-by-minute during your day. No, this is not just your local, national or international newspapers participating; often you can have fed to you new information from weblogs, news sites, or whatever other site you like to choose. Effectively mix your own news.

Start here by downloading the new Australian built Awasu Personal Edition 1.0 (yes, it sounds Japanese, but I can assure you Awasu is an Australian-built product.) I have downloaded and tested Syndirella, NewzCrawler, AmphetaDesk, FeedReader, Userland Radio, Headline Viewer, WildGrape, and NewsGator. From this field, I would choose Awasu any day even though it is the newest of what they call the RSS Newsreaders out there." [Microdoc Info Seeker News]

I'm not familiar with Awasu, so it's another one to try. More and more people are figuring out the benefits of RSS news aggregators. If you're not reading this in an aggregator, you should try it and see for yourself.

Well, I'm certainly doing my part to maintain SonicBlue's bottom line. Bryce Yehl just bought a ReplayTV 5040 and it's already having an effect on him:

"In spite of the fact that I'm already used to watching my favorites shows on my own schedule, I do see my viewing habits changing. It's that Magic Pause Button. I like it. A lot."

Even better, he's pointed me to ReplayPC and QVision, two utilities for extracting shows from newer Replays to your PC. I've ordered a Linksys WET11 Bridge so when it gets here, I'll have to try these out. I figure I should be able to pull a couple of shows off the new Replay, convert their formats, and load them on my Archos Multimedia Jukebox to go. Then when we go on vacation, I can take music and video with us!