But she quotes data (which may not be valid; I didn’t look into it) that says “only six percent of North American, Internet-using consumers use an RSS feed once per week or more.” Google apparently agrees; as much as my friends and I love it, Reader seems to be an ignored minor colony of the vast Google empire.

This fits with conventional blogger wisdom, which says that you need to post as often as possible and on as regular a schedule as possible, or people will ignore you. In other words, people are individually checking your blog rather than only looking when their RSS reader says you’ve posted something new.

To me this seems hilariously outdated. Eleven years ago, when I was in college, my friends already all had “web journals,” and we got tired of clicking through the list every couple of days to see who had written something new. So one friend wrote a handy early RSS reader. Now that everyone has a blog, wouldn’t this be an even bigger problem? Has everyone really managed to pick 3 or 4 sites that aggregate everything they could possibly want to know on the internet?

I have not. Not even close. In Reader I have 40 Must Read subscriptions and 35 Must Skim. Many are friends’ blogs who post rarely. Most of the rest are kidlit blogs, each of which are writing about different books. It is part of my job to have at least passing familiarity with as many YA novels as possible, and that would be harder without RSS gathering up all these reviews for me.

That said, when I look at my feeds, I am much more likely to click on the ones that have 1 or 2 new posts than the ones that have 35. With a small investment of time, I can check that blog off and shorten my feed list. It’s quite satisfying, if you are the sort of person who likes checking things off lists! This supports the way I post (sporadically) and flies in the face of that conventional blogger wisdom.

So I’m curious about my readership. Do you use an RSS reader? If so, do you clean out your whole list every day? Do you just click on a few blogs? How do you choose? Or do you think every so often, “Huh, I wonder if Parenthetical has posted anything new lately?” and go check? (Or are you reading this because you’re friends with me on Facebook and saw it there?)

I can’t say this is going to change how I post, because frankly if having a gazillion readers were that high a priority for me I’d be doing a lot of things differently (like not having any other hobbies?). But I’m terribly curious!

How would you sum up your favorite (or least favorite) novels in a sentence?

Suggestions welcome, especially if you can get them to me by Monday when this year’s summer reading list is due!

ETA: I love your suggestions! There still seems to be a gap in madcap, goofy adventures a la Sachar or Pinkwater, for girls who’ve grown out of Ramona or Harriet the Spy.

My instinct says, “nope, you’re still a nutty kookoo-pants.” Anyone who knows more than me care to weigh in?

There’s a long list of annoying responses people have to “I’m a librarian.” Topping the list of most-hated include:

a) “You don’t look like the librarians I remember!” [insert lecherous grin]

b) And of course, the one that makes me want to stomp through the floor like Rumpelstiltskin and then deliver an impassioned lecture from the basement about information professionals and navigating the internet: “Aren’t you worried about losing your job? ‘Cause, like, now we have Google.”

So what’s your dreaded inevitable response?

Apparently during the week I will “have the chance to teach school children whiles here in Ho District, and also…help the community schools around as to how to arrange and go about with keeping records of books and all other helps you can give in that regard.” Which is cool, because I couldn’t find a formal program that would let me do any librarianing. Even if I end up digging latrines and building house foundations, though, it’ll be fine – I’m trying to be laid back about this.

And on the weekends, I can see “the hightest mountain in Ghana, the bigest waterfall in Ghana, and the only Mona Monkey Site in Ghana.” Come to Ghana, we got monkeys!

I’m leaving on June 22, spending the weekend with Paula in France, then heading to Ghana. I’m stopping in London for a couple of days on the way back, hopefully to see Ryan B., and will land back home at 7 p.m. on Tues., July 25, in dire need of familiarity and a shower. So if you have anything fun going on in that month, I will miss it. That sadly includes the first Falconridge at its new location – I haven’t missed one in years, and I’m very sorry to miss this one, but it seemed worth it for an extra week in Ghana. Camp Nutella Freak will have to carry on without me this year!

And now for the pitch: I would like to collect some donations to bring with me. The most useful things would apparently be used cell phones and laptops – outdated and slow is just fine, so long as they basically work. Children’s clothes, shoes, and small toys would also be lovely. If you have anything you’d like to donate, please let me know!

Please help with whatever you can, whenever you can. This is going to be a long slog, but I really do believe we can help.