Week 4: RSS & Newsreaders
8. Learn about RSS feeds and setup your own Bloglines newsreader account.
I love RSS feeds. I’ve used them since grad school to keep track of all my favorite blogs, news topics, and anything else that had an RSS feed. Toward the end of my grad school career I started using feeds to keep track of job postings and let me tell you- what a blessing.
The job hunt is crazy enough as it is, without having to go fetch and read all the postings, lists, and other such things to see if you’d be interested and/or qualified for something. Every day I would sort through my job feeds on Bloglines and apply for whatever struck my fancy. Good thing too- low and behold i’m now the Operations Supervisor for a statewide Virtual Reference Service! :-)
Although I’m no longer looking for employment, I’ve kept my feed listings in the event I should want to sort through them again. Here they are if you’re interested. (Please note, there may be more I’d add if I was looking now, but these are the ones i used mid to late 2006):
- Chronicle Careers
- Beyond the Job
- Chronicle.com – Jobs in Librarians/library administration
- Chronicle.com – Jobs in Libraries
- Chronicle.com – Jobs in Library/information sciences
- Info Career Trends – Current Issue
I also had some page update alerts and newsletters coming my way from folks who didn’t have RSS feeds. Like ALA. When I first started using feeds for job hunting, I was amazed that the ALA job listings didn’t have an RSS feed. I wrote them an email to express my annoyance. How can we call ourselves innovators if the professional assoc website doesn’t even use simple web technologies? I’d like to cut and paste the email I got in response, but I can’t seem to find it. Serves me right for purging. Either way, I still don’t see an RSS feed for ALA’s job listings.