Welcome to the course site for LIS 9763: Social Media & Libraries, fall 2010.

Week 1: Intro

Updated: 4 January 2010 |

Learning Objectives
By the end of this week, you will:

  • understand the way the course site works.
  • have a course blog and have published your first post.
  • have set up an RSS aggregator for yourself.

Things to do this week
There is a lot to do in the first week. Much of it is prep work to get you set up for the term, so don’t let this scare you away! Things get much more manageable from week 2 on.

  1. Read the Syllabus. It’s our road map for the course and it outlines everything from how we’re going to communicate, to assignments, to how to contact me. The version posted on this blog is the latest-greatest version so even if you’ve read the version that was posted on the FIMS intranet, you’re going to want to read this one because it has been recently updated.
  2. Explore the course site. Take some time to look around the site and figure out what’s where. Read the blogs posts I’ve published as they all cover basics about the course, the weekly blogging, etc. If you’re brand new to blogs and blogging, this video is a great introduction.
  3. Set up your own blog on the site. As you probably read in the Syllabus, you will be using your blog as a discussion space for the course. Check out this screencast and post for help on how to set up your blog for this course and set up your blog here.
  4. Write your first blog post. This post should be an introduction: tell us who you are, what your experience is with social software (e.g.: have you been blogging for years? Have you used an RSS aggregator before? Is all this terrifyingly new to you?), and what you hope to get out of this course. And anything else you’d like to share! Your post can be in text, video, or audio (see my introductory post as an example of a video blog post).
  5. Vote for your preferred group chat time. More details here.
  6. Get yourself an RSS aggregator. I recommend Google Reader (there are some great videos to help you get started with Google reader here). It’s a web-based aggregator that allows you to access your RSS feeds from a browser (no software to download). You need an aggregator because you will be expected to subscribe to a number of feeds during the course of term. Start by subscribing to the 2 course feeds listed on the right. If you already use an aggregator, you can skip this step. And if you are completely new to RSS, this video explains the concept succinctly.