Thing 4 Keeping Up

Keeping up has been a challenge for librarians for a very long time.  Learning new techniques to make it a bit easier always appeals.  I approached this Thing 4 with that attitude. 

After a cursory overview of Flipboard and Zite, I spent a fair amount of time exploring Flipboard.  Using it to keep current with library blogs seemed beneficial.  I tried unsuccessfully to subscribe to Best of Publib, Doug Johnson's Blue Skunk Blog, LibrarianDOA, and  NYPL blogs.  I tried this several times.  Though my Flipboard includes 'placeholders' for each blog, no items ever loaded.  I checked several of these blogs directly, and there have been new posts in the week or so since I set Flipboard up.  Frustrating.

Since I am a new library trustee, I searched Google and United for Libraries (ALA)for blogs written by trustees.  Many libraries, library associations and library organizations have blogs, but I found just one post written by a young librarian who works in one library and serves as a trustee on the board of another.

I set up a couple magazines (Ports of Call, Potpourri) on Flipboard and also subscribed to various news, political and technology feeds as well as Facebook.

My conclusion: Flipboard adds one more layer, one more place to check for updates but not enough value to persuade me to use it to keep up. 

A postscript to Thing 3 Utilities...On a recent walk through the historic district in Beaufort, South Carolina, I admired a lovely old home that had a for sale sign in the yard and used RedLaser to scan the QRC code to see the price which was astronomical, of course.  An instant reality check.