I had the pleasure of attending the Syndicate, Aggregate, Communicate: New Web Tools in Real Applications for Libraries, Companies and Regular Folk conference earlier this week. While I was familiar, for the most part, with the technologies that were being discussed, I came away truly impressed with the variety of applications of these technologies that my fellow librarians have already come up with.
So I started looking for resources that described all these neat library-specific applications of RSS. And nothing leaped out at me as that collection point. Which brings us here — to RSS4Lib. I’m not entirely sure what I want this blog to be. Something of a mix between a clearinghouse of novel uses of RSS and a place to brainstorm new ideas.
So who am I? My name is Ken Varnum. I’m a librarian at the Ginn Library at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. I’ve been doing web site design, information architecture, and project management in libraries for 11 years, at the Ginn Library, Ford Motor Company’s research library, and the Open Media Research Institute. I have an abiding interesting in building information systems that give my customers access to the information they need before they have to ask for it. And that is why RSS grabs my interest so strongly.