Keeping Current with RSS
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Transcript of Keeping Current with RSS
Keeping Current with RSS
Nathan Rupp & Gail SteinhartCUL WorkshopJanuary 6, 2006
Keeping current with RSSHow many people are using RSS?From the Pew Internet & American Life Project:
“6 million Americans get news and information fed to them through RSS aggregators…”
“Five percent of Internet users say they use RSS aggregators or XML readers to get the news and other information delivered from blogs and content-rich Web sites as it is posted online. This is a first-time measurement from our surveys and is an indicator that this application is gaining an impressive foothold.”
http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/144/report_display.asp
Keeping current with RSSWhat does RSS stand for?
RDF Site SummaryRich Site Summary Really Simple Syndication
What is RSS?Form of XML Not much by itself – need a RSSreader
Keeping current with RSS
What RSS looks like (in strict XML)
Feed title
Feed description
Feed date
Article titleLink to article
Article description
Author
Keeping current with RSS
What RSS looks like (using a reader)
Feed titleFeed description
Feed dateArticle title/link to article
Articledescription
Author
Keeping current with RSS
What you can get with it:• Announcements• News headlines• Table of contents• New web page content• New blog posts
New, frequently updated information
Keeping current with RSSWhy would you use it:If you want an efficient way to monitor lots of sources of information
World news Prof
assoc news
Tech news
Publishers’ news
Library news
Local news
Tables of
contents
Favorite blogs
Higher ed news
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Advantages to RSS:• Less clicking and more reading!• Helps to keep track of frequently AND
infrequently updated sites• Little spam or ads (ala TIVO)• Information presented how YOU want it
—no reading weird color schemes
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Disadvantages to RSS:• Some feeds just have a headline or
excerpt, no full text• Your favorite site may not yet have
RSS • You were once clicking to 200 sites a
day, now you’re reading 200 RSS feeds!
Keeping current with RSSHow you get it:Web based RSS readers
• Bloglines (http://www.bloglines.com/) • NewsIsFree (http://www.newsisfree.com/) • Pluck web edition (http://client.pluck.com/pwe/)
Desktop RSS readers• infoRSS (http://inforss.mozdev.org/) • NewzCrawler (http://www.newzcrawler.com/)
Many more – see the RSS compendium: http://allrss.com/
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Finding feeds:• On the site itself - look for one of these
buttons , or a link that says “syndicate this site”, or text links that say XML, or RSS…
• Use a feed locator • If you’re looking for a specific feed,
Google works – try site:nsf.gov rss or site:npr.org rss
Keeping current with RSSFeed locators and search engines:
• Google Blog Search: http://google.com/blogsearch
• Feedster: http://www.feedster.com/• NewsIsFree: http://www.newsisfree.com/• Syndic8: http://www.syndic8.com/• 2RSS.com: http://www.2rss.com/• More from the RSS Compendium:
http://allrss.com/rsssearch.html
Your aggregator may have lists…
Keeping current with RSSRSS panel for Firefox:
Get it here: https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?application=firefox&category=News%20Reading&id=635
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See what other people are reading:
Bloglines
Keeping current with RSS
See what other people are reading:
Blogrolls (scan the sidebar of blogs that interest you)
Keeping current with RSSSome other interesting sources:
• U.S. gov’t feeds: http://www.firstgov.gov/Topics/Reference_Shelf/Libraries/RSS_Library.shtml and http://www.gpoaccess.gov/rss/
• RSS in government: http://rssgov.com/ • Factiva RSS beta (enter from FD)• Bioinformatics feeds (mostly journals): http://
barf.jcowboy.org/• Steve Cohen, RSS junkie: http://www.librarystuff.net/• Resource Shelf (library resources in general,
sometimes RSS): http://www.resourceshelf.com/
Keeping current with RSS
Neat stuff (or how did they do that?!)• Google searches• Create RSS feeds for sites that don’t
have them (OPAC?) • Email• Shopping deals- Tim Yang’s “Things You Can Do with
RSS” (http://timyang.com/wiki/)
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What could the library do with RSS?Publish
• New books• New databases• Events• News• Almost anything (if you are the Kansas City
Public Library: http://www.kclibrary.org/rss/)
Keeping current with RSS
What could the library do with RSS?Recommend• List journals with feeds (see
http://library.usask.ca/ejournals/rss_feeds.php)
• Subject guides to feeds (see http://www.scs.edu/library/feeds/rss.htm)
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Libraries using RSS:• RSS4Lib:
http://blogs.fletcher.tufts.edu/rss4lib/• Blog without a library:
http://www.blogwithoutalibrary.net/
Keeping current with RSS
General RSS resources:• RSS compendium: http://allrss.com/ • Lockergnome:
http://channels.lockergnome.com/rss/• RSS tutorial: http://rssgov.com/rssworkshop.html• RSS tutorial for content publishers and
webmasters: http://www.mnot.net/rss/tutorial/
And many many more…
Keeping current with RSS
Setting up a Bloglines account:• http://bloglines.com/ • Register for an account• Pick a couple of subscriptions from
their list just to see how it works• Some things you can do with Bloglines:
clip or email items, organize feeds and clippings into folders, add and delete feeds