TechEssence.info

Executive Summary

The Web is an amazing source of information on just about every subject imaginable. Increasingly, people are depending on the Web for news, professional development and education. In light of the continuous growth of the Web, it has become difficult to keep up with all of the news stories covered, scholarly studies published, and blog posts written. If you want to know what’s going on in the world or in your field, you may have to visit countless websites every day or you risk missing potentially important information. Many people have a list of sources that they regularly look to for news and information. However, as the number of useful Web sites grows, users find it increasingly difficult to visit all of the pages every day. In addition, some Web sites and blogs are not updated with any regularity. There is a way to keep up with online content from dozens or hundreds of Web sites on a single page. This technology, RSS, is essentially the antidote to information overload.

What It Is

RSS is a format for syndicating content on the Web. Based on XML, RSS breaks Web sites into discrete chunks of information, like a single news story or a single blog post. It frees the content from the page. You then have an RSS feed that includes only the content from the chosen site, without any of the information about how it is to be presented. This means that the content, via RSS, could be made available on other pages and the look could be tailored to whatever site the content is on. Also, instead of checking a Web site daily for updates, people can subscribe to the site’s RSS feed – the method by which RSS is delivered – and when new information is posted to the Web site, it can be accessed through an aggregator, email, or on a separate Web page. The most common way that people use RSS is in an aggregator which allows you to subscribe to content (via RSS) from many different sources on a single page. As soon as new content is posted to the Web sites you are subscribed to, it will appear in your aggregator. Aggregators can come in the form of a Web-based application or desktop software (some e-mail software can also be used as an aggregator).

Lots of Web sites have RSS feeds. Most traditional media Web sites (CNN, New York Times, Montpelier Times-Argus, etc.) have RSS feeds, as do blogs, wikis, journals and other frequently updated Web sites. Even social bookmarking sites and photo sharing sites like Flickr have RSS feeds!

What Can Be Done With It

Since content is separated from the page, RSS feeds can be combined and syndicated in novel ways. You can use it to provide content for your patrons – from diverse sources – that is dynamically updated, requiring no action from you other than the initial set up. You can use it to make it easier for patrons to keep track of library news, new books and other materials, and what books they have checked out. By subscribing to RSS feeds of new library books, patrons can be constantly updated on what the library has recently purchased. In addition, librarians can subscribe to library journals, blogs, and other Web content in an aggregator in order to keep up with developments in the profession.

Examples

• Library News
• Winnetka Northfield Public Library News
• Syndicating content in online courseware
• Building a Library Presence in Online Courseware
• Feed of new materials and other reading lists
• New Books from the University of Alberta
• Seattle Public Library Reading Lists: What’s New/What’s Popular
• Search Feeds
• Hennepin County Public Library (try a search in their catalog!)
• Feed of Items on Hold/Items Checked Out
• Subject Guides
• Kansas City Public Library Subject Guides
• Pushing News or Journal Tables of Contents to Patrons
• University of Wisconsin’s Ebling Library Journal RSS Feeds
• Washington and Lee Law School - Current Law Journal Content
• Keeping up with our profession
• The RSS feeds I subscribe to in Bloglines
• LIS Feeds

Who Should Be Using It

Everyone! RSS is useful both personally and professionally. If you’re keeping up with a lot of Web content that’s updated frequently (periodicals, blogs, etc.), consider subscribing to their RSS feeds in an aggregator. If you are looking for a way to disseminate library information to patrons, consider using RSS to allow them to read your content on your Web site, through e-mail, in an aggregator, etc. If you’re looking for a way to send subject specific information to clinicians, business people, or faculty members, you can use various means to push relevant news and journal tables of contents to them. RSS is used in public, academic, special, corporate, law, medical, and all other kinds of libraries. People often use RSS without knowing it, such as in personalized portals like MyYahoo!

Additional Tools

• Aggregators
• Bloglines
• Rojo
• Newz Crawler
• Feed to JavaScript Services: Allows you to syndicate an RSS feed onto a Web site and generates the JavaScript needed to do it
• Feed2JS
• RSS-to-JavaScript
• Feed to E-mail Services: Allows you to subscribe to RSS feeds via e-mail so new content will arrive in your Inbox
• Feedburner Blog to E-mail
• RMail
• Feed Mixers: make multiple feeds into one feed
• RSS Mix
• KickRSS

More Information

"How to Sell RSS (Or Where the Feed Fanboys Drop the Ball)." CopyBlogger. June 19, 2006.

"Things You Can Do With RSS." Tim Yang Wiki.

Arrington, Michael. "The State of Online Feed Readers." TechCrunch. March 30, 2006.

Bhatt, Jay. "Using RSS to increase user awareness of e-resources in academic libraries." HigherEd BlogCon.. April 12, 2006.

Moll, Joy Weese. Bloglines for Librarians in Three (and a half) Easy Steps.. February 8, 2005.

Rothman, David and Michael Stephens. “TTW Mailbox: Selling RSS to Medical Librarians" Tame The Web. June 28, 2006.

Schneider, Karen G. "Getting Started with RSS: The Fifteen-Minute Tutorial" Free Range Librarian. November 18, 2003.

Tennant, Roy. "Feed Your Head: Keeping Up by Using RSS" Library Journal. May 15, 2003.