LibWorm FAQ

What is LibWorm?

LibWorm is intended to be a search engine, a professional development tool, and a current awareness tool for people who work in libraries or care about libraries.

How does LibWorm work?

LibWorm collects updates from about 1400 RSS feeds (and growing). The contents of these feeds are then available for searching, and search results can themselves be output as an RSS feed that the user can subscribe to either in his/her favourite aggregator or in LibWorm's built-in aggregator.

Where did you get the feeds?

All over. We consulted Steven Cohen and Blake Carver (creators of the now retired LISFeeds), who shared their list of feeds to get us started. Thank you, Blake and Steven! One other particularly helpful site was Amanda Etches-Johnson's Blogging Libraries Wiki. We got hundreds of leads on new feeds from Amanda's wiki, and borrowed her ideas about categories (with her kind permission). Thanks, Amanda! We also got a lot of feeds from the list of blogs at LISWiki, but most importantly, we add feeds that are submitted by registered users.

What is the difference between LibWorm Feed Categories and Subjects?

Each feed searched by LibWorm has been assigned a category, so when you browse by Feed Category, you're seeing all the content from the feeds that have been assigned to that category. Subjects are pre-built searches, usually of greater complexity than the user interface currently supports, for common subjects of interest to libraryfolk. It might be easier to understand with an example:

If you browse by the FEED CATEGORY "Podcasts : Academic Libraries," you see ONLY content from feeds that are podcasts produced by academic libraries. If you browse by the SUBJECT "Podcasting" you'll get all items that contain the words "podcasting", "podcasts" or "podcast".

How can I submit my feed to LibWorm?

Register for a free LibWorm account - logging in will give you access to the 'Submit a Feed' form.

How can I make sure my feed is as searchable as possible at LibWorm?

The most important thing you can do is to offer fully populated feeds with meaning titles, full content or concise descriptions that include the important keywords of your text, and urls that work. You can also verify that your output is in the correct format using Feed Validator.

What if I see a change that needs to be made?

Please tell us by using the contact form below. If you found your feed here and want it removed, we will remove it promptly. If you think your feed was given the wrong category, tell us! Are there pre-set searches/feeds you think we should offer? Tell us! Got any feeds we should add? Please let us know! The list of feeds we currently have is far from perfect or complete- and it won't get much closer to either without your help.

Who made LibWorm?

Frankie Dolan, a UK-based IT engineer, built the infrastructure for MedWorm.com. David Rothman, a medical library paraprofessional and blogger in Syracuse, NY, suggested to Frankie that this infrastructure would also work very well for making the biblioblogosphere more searchable. Frankie liked the idea, and said she was game if David would take on the day-to-day administrative tasks. David collected the feeds, applied categories, proposed some pre-set searches, and made suggestions about functionality and interface design; Frankie built everything that makes LibWorm work.

Will LibWorm remain free to use?

Yes, absolutely and without question- we don't ever want to charge people to use LibWorm. We wouldn't, however, turn down sponsorship from an IT or library services/products vendor we respect in exchange for a banner advertisement (that would help pay the costs of the site). If you're interested in sponsoring or supporting LibWorm, please use the contact form below so we can talk.

What does LibWorm do with my registration information? What is LibWorm's privacy policy?

We retain your registration information only for you to maintain your account and to receive any information about LibWorm that you have opted in for. We will never share your information with anyone else for any reason. No exceptions. If you decide after registering that you don't want your information in LibWorm's database, you will be able to delete it yourself from your account area.

Thanks for visiting, and please let us know what you think!

- David and Frankie

Questions? Comments? Compliments? Critiques? Please contact us via the form below:

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