Comments on: RSS Discussion (or lack thereof?) on MedLib-L (Take II) http://davidrothman.net/2006/07/21/rss-discussion-or-lack-thereof-on-medlib-l-take-ii/ Health Information | Geekery Wed, 01 Feb 2012 21:49:12 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 hourly 1 By: David Rothman http://davidrothman.net/2006/07/21/rss-discussion-or-lack-thereof-on-medlib-l-take-ii/comment-page-1/#comment-93 David Rothman Sun, 23 Jul 2006 04:33:13 +0000 http://davidrothman.net/2006/07/21/rss-discussion-or-lack-thereof-on-medlib-l-take-ii/#comment-93 All really good points, Rachel. Thanks! All really good points, Rachel. Thanks!

]]> By: Rachel http://davidrothman.net/2006/07/21/rss-discussion-or-lack-thereof-on-medlib-l-take-ii/comment-page-1/#comment-88 Rachel Sat, 22 Jul 2006 14:15:08 +0000 http://davidrothman.net/2006/07/21/rss-discussion-or-lack-thereof-on-medlib-l-take-ii/#comment-88 A couple of other benefits that are important to me (although the unclogged inbox was a major factor in setting up my Bloglines subscriptions): 1) I have interests aside from my profession and my blog. If I'm a physician in a particular field, I can have RSS feeds of TOCs (and sometimes additional content) from journals in my field. Maybe I'm an immigrant and want news feeds from my home country, or am from another state and want feeds from my hometown. Maybe I do volunteer work and want news related to that. Maybe I just need a laugh once a day, and want to get feeds from Overheard in the Office. Hey, maybe I want to be an administrator someday and want to keep up with the problems other clinicians are facing through feeds of other medical and nursing blogs. Each is an information need, and not limited to what we might superficially assume of Dr X from area Y. 2) Related to the first item, I can organize my feeds by subject. I can group journal TOCs or medical subject feeds into one folder, my personal stuff in another, blogs I like in another, news in another. Maybe I want grant notices or FDA safety alerts in another folder. Then I can prioritize what I read on any given day by my subject knowledge/interest needs, rather than swimming around in my flooded inbox. 3) I can save things for later. Sure, I can save emails for later, but I find that I rarely revisit TOC or listserv emails older than a week. In Bloglines, I'll go back to something even a month old because at some point, I thought it was worth exploring. A couple of other benefits that are important to me (although the unclogged inbox was a major factor in setting up my Bloglines subscriptions):

1) I have interests aside from my profession and my blog. If I’m a physician in a particular field, I can have RSS feeds of TOCs (and sometimes additional content) from journals in my field. Maybe I’m an immigrant and want news feeds from my home country, or am from another state and want feeds from my hometown. Maybe I do volunteer work and want news related to that. Maybe I just need a laugh once a day, and want to get feeds from Overheard in the Office. Hey, maybe I want to be an administrator someday and want to keep up with the problems other clinicians are facing through feeds of other medical and nursing blogs. Each is an information need, and not limited to what we might superficially assume of Dr X from area Y.

2) Related to the first item, I can organize my feeds by subject. I can group journal TOCs or medical subject feeds into one folder, my personal stuff in another, blogs I like in another, news in another. Maybe I want grant notices or FDA safety alerts in another folder. Then I can prioritize what I read on any given day by my subject knowledge/interest needs, rather than swimming around in my flooded inbox.

3) I can save things for later. Sure, I can save emails for later, but I find that I rarely revisit TOC or listserv emails older than a week. In Bloglines, I’ll go back to something even a month old because at some point, I thought it was worth exploring.

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