Saturday, May 17, 2008

News aggregators

Yeah, finally a task that I don't have to do much work for!

I discovered RSS aggregators about two years ago when I was doing a project for SLT and have used Bloglines constantly since then. I subscribe to ABC News, Crikey, Salon and a few other news ones as well as 'The Good Library Blog' which drives me nuts but is really good at keeping me thinking, the Ann Arbor Library which I find endlessly inspiring, a whole lot of other work related sites that I only check on occasionally (about information literacy, libraries that are 'doing' technology well, inspiring libraries) plus a some wonderful author blogs to remind me why I originally started working in libraries. I was very excited to find that Susan Hill - a writer I admired a lot growing up in the UK - (she seemed to be one of the only people I was reading who was still alive!) has a blog and it is just as interesting as I would have imagined! She has some great links to other author sites.

Well it is Sunday afternoon, I can hear the kids screaming at each other and my husband is sounding as if he has had enough! I will rejoin family life and return to my blogging next weekend ...

Library Thing

Finally back blogging. Have added my books to Library Thing - find it an interesting tool in TalisPlus

http://catalogue.statelibrary.tas.gov.au/item/?q=storm+prophet&i=1&id=MACSPRO98000

but hadn't created a library before.

Have put some books I have read recently or bought recently!

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/HobartBooklover

Saw Neil Gaiman when he was in Hobart a couple of weeks ago (thank you Ellison Hawker) and was really impressed. An author who can talk as well as he can write. Took my 10 and 14 year olds as well which gives you an idea of the wide ranging audience he attracts (though mainly 20 something vaguely goth looking people). Really loved Coraline. Now reading Neverwhere.

I've included the mention of Storm Prophet by Hector Macdonald because I met him when he was in Darwin working on his next novel. He did an author session at Northern Territory Library and was very appreciative of the library staff which always goes down well! Storm Prophet is a fast-paced, exciting read with a strong female lead character - I can see the movie already!