OK, I have tried out the Google Blog Reader. I subscribed to msnbc, cnn, the Fort Worth Star Telegram, Unshelved, Librarian.net, and, of course, North Texas 23. My first reaction to this is that I have not yet figured out how it differs from using the Favorites button to bookmark and retrieve favorite websites. Indeed, since you have to log into a website to get to the information, it seems like it adds extra steps. It does not seem to be a good way to search for library blogs. I found an article called "50 Best Library Blogs" but found it easier to Google it to read the article than to use Blog Reader. Maybe I'll play around with this some more to see if it has any advantages; I haven't found them yet.
Edited to add: OK, I think I've found something valuable in this. The Google Reader page itself offers us ideas of what to look at. I've discovered some interesting things I've never seen before, like WebUrbanist. What's Hot in Google Reader reminds me a bit of Reddit and Digg.
At what point is there simply too much information for a human brain to process? When do we sacrifice depth of knowledge for a wide, shallow and cursory knowledge of basic headlines? On the other hand, might it not be part of our job to know where all these headlines are so we can help people find them?
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