BLOG HELP

questions about blogs

1. What's a blog?
2. What is on the Eastern Regional Libraries blog?
3. How do I read it?
4. How do I subscribe?
5. Where can I get a feed reader?
6. How do I find more great feeds?

1. What's a blog?

A Blog:

• is an abbreviation for weblog or web log
• is a web publication that appears as a series of articles ranging from personal diaries and musings to promotion of events for organisations, tutorials for computer programs among others.
• often has a link to leave comments and can develop small communities of readers.

For more information view the Wikipedia article on blogs.

2. What is on the Eastern Regional Libraries blog?

The Eastern Regional Libraries blog contains:

• information on events
• new titles added to the libraries
• library announcements.

We envisage that, in the future, this will take the place of the areas that currently serve this purpose.

3. How do I read it?

You can read the blog through your web browser by clicking on the link to the library blog at the top of this page.

4. How do I subscribe?

Another way to read the blog is to subscribe to the feed and read it through your feed reader. A feed reader (also known as news aggregator or rss reader) is a software application that collects content from blogs and news services and displays those articles.

Why subscribe? By subscribing you can keep track of multiple blogs without having to visit each time and remember the address. You can also choose to read only the articles you want.

Subscribing to the blog if you haven't got a feed reader

1. Click on the link Subscribe in a reader found in the menu on our blog or by clicking on the feed address http://feeds.feedburner.com/EasternRegionalLibraries
   
   
   
   
2. Click on one of the links to the popular feed readers at the top of the screen. e.g See below Live Bookmarks (Mozilla Firefox, BlogLines, My Yahoo, Google)
   
   
   
3. You will be prompted to register (free).

Subscribing to the blog if you already have a feed reader

If you already have a feed reader you can copy the address to your reader:
Feed address: http://feeds.feedburner.com/EasternRegionalLibraries

6. Where can I get a feed reader?

There are many free feed readers to be found on the web or you can follow the links from the feed address.

Browsers

• Opera 8+
  To add to the feeds menu: visit blog, click on RSS in the address bar, click OK.
  
• Mozilla Firefox
  To add a new Livemark:
  1.Click on Manage Bookmarks from the bookmarks menu.
  2.Click on New Livemark from the File menu.
  3.Add the feed address (http://feeds.feedburner.com/EasternRegionalLibraries) and give it a title and description.
  4.Click OK.

Email

• Mozilla Thunderbird
  To set up the news and blogs reader:
  1.Go to the File menu, scroll to new and select account.
  2.Select RSS news & blogs and click next.
  3.Give the account a name or leave as news & blogs and click next.
  4.Click Finish.
  
  To add a feed:
  1.Right-click on your account title (e.g. news & blogs) and select manage subscriptions.
  2.Click on the Add button and add the feed address then click OK. You can select to get the article summary rather than the whole blog.
  

Web

• Bloglines
  1. Join Bloglines at http://www.bloglines.com.
  2. Once logged in, click on the link to Add a blog.
  3. Add the feed address http://feeds.feedburner.com/EasternRegionalLibraries and click the subscribe button.
  4. Adjust any settings on the next screen and click subscribe.
  
  
• My Yahoo
  1. If you have a Yahoo email/group account you already have a My Yahoo login. Otherwise join up at http://au.my.yahoo.com/.
  2. Once logged in, click on Add Content link in one of the columns.
  3. Click on the link Add RSS by URL.
  4. Add the feed address http://feeds.feedburner.com/EasternRegionalLibraries to the box and click the add button.
  5. A list of the contents will appear. Click on the Add to My Yahoo button.

Links to more feed readers may be found at http://blogspace.com/rss/readers

7. How do I find more great feeds?

So you've added the library blog to your reader but you want to search for some more feeds to add. Try the following:

ABC Online
Wired News - Technology news