five blogs

Rachel has started a neat little meme about the non-library blogs we’re reading. Rather than stuff your aggregator with crafty temptations (I read a lot of art/craft blogs), I picked a blog from five non-library folders in my aggregator (aside: Google Reader. Yes, after 4 loyal years with Bloglines, I’ve switched. But that’s a topic for a whole other post).

Here are 5 non-library blogs I read:

• Antarctic Journal. A seasonal blog (now in the off-season) by a researcher who studies Adélie Penguins on Ross Island, Antarctica. If the fascinating tales of tent-living in extreme weather don’t get you, the pictures of adorable penguins will!
• Bokardo. This one is sort of a cheat because while it’s not library-related per se, it’s definitely work-related for me. Joshua Porter writes about design (“social design”, more specifically), his recent post on 5 design principles to live by really resonated with me.
• Things I Learned the Hard Way. The subtitle — “Female Folk Wisdom for Life, Love, Work and Play” — says it all!
• Sew Green. I had to sneak at least one craft blog onto the list! Sew Green is a new, collaborative effort of 14 bloggers who are passionate about living (and crafting) environmentally responsibly.
• blogTO. Everything you could possibly want to know about living in Toronto. I subscribed to this blog as a kick-in-the-pants reminder to do more in this city. Truth is, I haven’t gotten any better at taking advantage of all the great cultural opportunities the city affords (unless getting take-out from the local roti shop counts as a cultural activity), but I am terribly informed.

I used to use a local feed reader, but I switched to Google Reader maybe a year ago. Haven’t looked back. I sometimes worry about depending on Google for mail and RSS though.

Interesting stuff re: non-lib blogs. I read (goes to check) (okay, gives up) a bajillion blogs, roughly half of which are library related, another quarter tech stuff (including freshmeat.net’s feed, which I should probably drop ‘cos geez too much traffic) and a quarter ‘other’. I’ve got a basic weeding policy set up because my feeds were getting out of control; now before I add a new one, I have to drop an old one.

[...] From Amanda and others: here are 5 non-library blogs I read. These are all blogs by people I actually know in real life. [...]

I’m sticking with Bloglines for now. At some point I’ll change, but it works for me and is easy to demonstrate to those who work with blogs less often.

That being said, outside of Genealogy and Library-related blogs, here are the other 5 I read:

1. DorkyMorky – personal blog of a classmate from McGill’s MLIS program who graduated then left to teach English in Japan. With the occasional trip home to Canada, or other adventures, she has been there ever since! (We graduated in 1995!) http://dorkymorky.blogspot.com/index.html

2. Rick Mercer’s Blog – Rick’s commentary on all things Canadian AND the photo challenge. Need I say more?
http://rickmercer.blogspot.com/

3. The Mad Cropper – I’m getting into scrapbooking, slowly, so I’ve been reading scrapbooking blogs. I particularly like this one:
http://www.madcropper.com/

4. ResearchBuzz – Okay, this one is job related, but I just really like Tara’s work: http://www.researchbuzz.org/wp/

5. A non-blog: Facebook. If I really want to see what my friends are up to, I either catch their feeds on their Facebook profile, or check their Walls, etc.

Ciao!

Elise (aka CanadianLibGenie)