Thing #17: ELM Productivity Tools

1. Gale: Created an RSS feed on "youth smoking" from InfoTrac Student Edition to go into my Bloglines reader. It didn't seem to work in Google Reader, even after reading the tips in the 23 Things email. I removed the proxy part of the URL but it only worked in Bloglines, not Google Reader. Also created an RSS feed on "children's health" from NPR News to Bloglines.
2. EBSCO: Created a web page including text, links to articles from EBSCO Academic and a search box. I changed the background color. Saved it to the desktop. However, when I opened it from the desktop, the search box wasn't showing; only the text above it showed.
3. ProQuest: Created a web page with a couple of articles. I had to go back and edit text since the web page showed a list of the searches, while all I wanted was the search results (citations) I had saved. Once I removed the previous search listings, it looked better.
4. NetLibrary: Created note and then went back to Favorites and Notes to see how it would display in future. There was still a book in there from years ago when I had created a NetLibrary account. I suppose this could be useful but I don't expect to use it in the near future.

As to how any of these would be useful:

• The RSS feature would be nice to keep up with a topic. You could use it to update pathfinders. Or use it for professional development by being alerted to articles of interest. Or show patrons how they could use it to stay current on a particular topic.
• The creation of a web page in EBSCO or ProQuest could be useful in putting together a list of articles, text and images as a combined web page in order to email it to someone or to share in some way. It's a more attractive-looking web page (particularly in EBSCO) than if you had just emailed a list of articles. For instance, let's say that someone wanted information on tomato diseases. You could find articles and add them to a web page you created in EBSCO; then search Google Images and find images to add to that web page; and finally, type text including books that had information on the disease, links to other web sites such as the Extension Service, and more. It would look nicer than plain text you'd email. And the web page could be linked to from your web site, if you wanted to post pathfinders or information on a current topic.

Resources: Minitex produces some useful Webinars. I had previously attended one via phone/web called "Web Page Creators: Free of Cost & Code" which included some of the information included in this Thing #17. I see that they have a webinar on creating podcasts. I think I'll watch it soon.