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

Keeping current with RSS

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

Keeping current with RSS

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/

Keeping current with RSS

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

Keeping current with RSS

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/)

Keeping current with RSS

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)

Keeping current with RSS

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