Blogs and Blog Readers

Blogs and Blog Readers

If you have spent any amount of time reading blogs you can understand how hard it is to remember to check on each blog you enjoy, to make sure that you don't miss a new post. There are an endless amount of great blogs to follow and it can be very time consuming to find each one to look for new posts. Well I have good news! I have recently discovered blog readers. There are several different ones that you can chose from as well. The best way for me to explain what a blog reader is, is to compare them to Facebook. You add a blog similar to adding friends and then their information and posts shows up on the news feed. You can set up a blog reader and find all the blogs you enjoy to read and then they will set up a page similar to Facebook's "news feed" where you can scroll down the screen and see what your favorite bloggers have posted. A few options for you are Bloglovin’, Feedly, Bloglines, NewsBlur, Digg Reader, and Newsvibe. After digging deeper into each one of these and playing around with what each one has to offer I prefer the blog reader Bloglovin'. I felt that this one was the most user friendly for me. It was very easy for me to search for blogs and add blogs that I knew I wanted to add. When scrolling through "my feed" I found the format to be the most pleasing to me. It was very similar to Facebook and Pinterest which are sites I am use to. You are able to sort from the newest posts to older or you can click on just one blog you want to explore more of. Of course like just about anything on the web you do have to scroll past the advertisements but I found that on all the blog reader sites. I suggest that if you read a lot of blogs, to save yourself time and set up a blog reader with all your favorite sites and enjoy!

While I was exploring blog readers I came across some amazing blogs about a variety of things that could be helpful for my job as a librarian. There is so much out there when you start looking and that is the key, to look. I enjoy reading blogs about first time teachers or librarians because you can relate to what they are saying and you can learn from their experiences. It is very comforting to hear other stores from other librarians.  You can also discover the latest news and happenings along with great ideas to use in the library. Technology blogs are also great blogs to follow. Here are a few of my favorite blogs...

1) Library Displays ( http://schoollibrarydisplays.blogspot.com/ ) This blog has a ton of great idea for book display in the library to generate interest and excitement about reading. I spent a lot of time looking at all the posts on this bog and was able to get a lot of great ideas for the future in my library. One of my favorite posts was the "poet-tree"! I cant wait to make that!
2) Great Kid Books ( http://greatkidbooks.blogspot.com/) This is another one of my favorite posts because it gives great reviews of books for children. I was able to find a great read aloud book from this blog. I love blogs that post about books they have just read and then review them. It is a way to save me time and still b able to find great books.
3) The Busy Librarian (http://www.busylibrarian.com/) This blog offers a ton of podcasts and interviews with authors and illustrators. I had just recently read the book "Max the Brave" to some of my classes and found a podcast with the author on this blog that I will then be able to use along with the read aloud!  There are a lot of links to other extremely useful sites and podcasts. I love this blog!
4) Library as Makerspace ( http://librarymakerspace.blogspot.com/ ) This is a great site that I am following because I know that this is the way of the future and how my school district would like to go in. I am still learning about makerspace and what exactly it is and all that it entails so this blog will be extremely helpful to me in the near future. There are a lot of project ideas and technology tools posted on this blog. Its is more defiantly one to keep an eye on so I am glad that I have it on my blog reader!
5) Mrs. Lodge's Library ( http://www.mrs-lodges-library.com/ ) I am also a huge fan of this blog that Mrs. Lodges created about her library. She posts a wide range of things on her blog, read alouds, center ideas, classroom management ideas, and much more. This is the perfect blog to follow if you a new librarian like myself.

Along with my Bloglovin' blog reader I also set up a Tumblr account to be able to share ideas and posts and follow more librarians. If you are interested in my Tumblr then you can click on the link below. Just remember it has just been started and is a work in progress :)

http://mskirkthelibrarian.tumblr.com/