Tips for Keeping Up

Steven M. Cohen, who is a senior law librarian at Law Library Management, Inc. and blogs at LibraryStuff, stepped in to pinch hit for Gary Price, who is recovering from surgery. Steven is IL's version of Woody Allen. He is quite articulate and rapid-fire funny.

Steven's advice: "Listen to your peeps" -- the people that you’re serving -- and promote yourself as an information professional. Steven works with lawyers and makes sure to conduct his own personal PR campaign daily. The attorneys he serves love his personal touch and he sometimes gets requests to compile a "Cohen book" when he's handed a research project.

Why keep up? To market yourself and make your employer happy that you’re there. It's job security! Having fans is very important. They provide an important PR function for you.

When does the reference interview end? When the person he’s working with says to stop. Until then, Steven sets up alerts and continuously feeds his attorneys more information as it becomes available. When people pay attention to your needs, you love it and so do the attorneys he serves.

How does Steven train attorneys to use RSS? He doesn’t. They’re too busy. That’s his job!

The Goal
Information should come to you via RSS and other updating services.

What to Monitor
New articles, press releases, and changes to web pages. Steven has set up 200 Google alerts. When he receives an update from these, he checks a research project database to see who needs to receive them.

What to Look For

• Employee changes (hires and fires)
• New products and development
• Look beyond the initial question for additional information that might be relevant
  

A Tool to Get the Job Done
Google Reader -- Steven has 1500 RSS feeds that he quickly scans in about an hour and a half every evening. When he finds information that would be relevant for one of customers, he uses Google Reader's email link and types “Dear So and So, I just saw this information, which was published xx minutes ago. [He says including the currency is quite important. It reflects on your skill as a researcher and it makes the recipient believe s/he is in possession of cutting-edge information. He contends lawyers love that feeling.] I recall that you were interested in this topic.”

Cohen's allegedly trademarked quote: “It’s not rocket science -- it’s library science!” (Steven, if you can track me down I'll pay you for this use.)

Recommended Resources

• WatchThatPage - a free service that monitors pages and extracts new information. Checks pages at an interval that you select -- hour, day, etc. Enter URLs to monitor. Can file in user-specified folders. Can monitor links on web pages.
• WebSite-Watcher - This desktop-based software costs $30/license. It highlights URLs that have been changed.
• Page2RSS - Here's a way to get an RSS feed for pages that have stable URLs and are on the open web. Creates a feed for pages that don’t offer one. “Free is as free does” Steven said because this service only has daily updates.
• ReloadEvery is a Firefox add-on that reloads a web page automatically every minute. It's good for Outlook’s Webmail because you'll never be logged off for lack of activity. Good for getting Southwest Airlines check-in too. Could you use it for eBay?
• FeedSidebar - Another Firefox add-on for Live Search bookmarks. Pops them up in a box on the left side of the screen. You can specify the frequency of updates.
• Update Scanner - Yet another Firefox add-on that scans selected web pages for updates. You specify the frequency and level of change so you won't see minor changes such as updating today's date and correcting mispelled words. Changes are highlighted. Update Scanner provides faster notification than Google email alerts.

Steven's Favorite Web Tools

Please email me if you can't find these sites. I'm not providing links because of time and web access limitations.

• Internet Archive
• ScreenGrab
• Cool Iris - Add to toolbar, works great in Lexis
• BugMeNot
• TinyURL
• AwesomeHighlighter
• Picnik - Photo editor
• Invisible Auctions - Looks for mispellings commonly used on eBay. Use it to get good deals on items because no one else can find them. Example: Thomas the Tain gear for his son
• PDF Escape
• PDF Me Not
• CiteBite - Copy and paste an item on a website and paste it and the page's URL into CiteBite. It will create a static web page with the information highlighted. Great to send to others because they can quickly see why you've sent it.

Contact information:
steven@lawlib.com
917-837-9706

Presentation slides: tinyurl.com/keepingup

RSS Feeds and News Readers

I've arrived at item #8 of the 23 Things training -- RSS feeds and newsreaders. Although the directions instructed me to set up a Bloglines account, I've decided to stick with Google Reader. I appreciate its clean design and navigation macros.

I set up this account after I returned from Internet Librarian '07. Why? I attended Steven M. Cohen's session about RSS feeds and Google Reader. Steven contended that Google Reader has Bloglines beat hands down. At that time, Steven had about 960 feeds set up on his Google Reader account and claimed he spent only one hour a day going through them! He demonstrated how he emails postings to the lawyers in his firm to keep them updated. ("This article was posted by the New York Times five minutes ago. Thought you'd find it interesting.") I currently have 18 feeds set up on my Google Reader account.

On to the questions!

What do you like about RSS and newsreaders? Imagine picking up a newspaper that has been customized to cover all of your interests. There are so many RSS feeds available now that you can stay up to date on just about anything that interests you. The Google Reader newsreader allows me to quickly review the latest postings and distribute ones of interest.

How do you think you might be able to use this technology in your work or personal life? I'm already using it! When the Scottsdale Tribune stopped delivering to my area, I missed having the paper to read while I ate breakfast. Now I take my notebook to the table and browse the latest news and postings while I munch and sip.

How can libraries use RSS or take advantage of this new technology? There are many ways! Here are some thoughts.

RSS feeds of catalog searches would allow library customers to be alerted when new items by their favorite authors or on subjects of interest are added to the collection. (I'd like an RSS feed from our new DVDs page to save the tedium of plowing through the titles I've already reserved!) We currently offer an email alert service but it isn't immediate and frankly it doesn't work very well.

We already offer an RSS feed for account information.

Several of our databases already offer RSS feeds on searches. In addition to doing more training on these wonderful resources, we need to publicize this service!

We could provide customizable RSS feeds for book reviews, library program information, and library news.

As a school librarian, I know the email addresses of the teachers I serve. I can send them (and my colleagues in the public and SUSD libraries) postings from Librarian's Internet Index, ResourceShelf, etc. when I know they will find them interesting and useful.

I've heard both Steven Cohen and Gary Price contend that RSS is not mainstream. People don't "get" it. When they click on those little orange buttons they encounter on web pages they get a page of gobbledygook. Libraries can provide a useful service by offering Web 2.0 training sessions that include RSS and newsreader topics. This is a way of positioning ourselves as goto technology leaders!

Time to post this and go check out the latest from the Annoyed Librarian and Fake Steve...