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News & RSS | RSS Directory | More About RSS MORE ABOUT RSSInformation Management Traditionally, libraries have provided current awareness services in the form of emails, bulletin boards and circulars to help you stay up-to-date with the professional press and media. These services are often based on search profiles of specific important sources, so are highly convenient and effective. These services are also now being supplemented by newsfeeds or RSS feeds (RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication). Newsfeeds and RSS feeds are terms that are synonymous with each other. Both are a type of syndicated webfeed, automatically generated when a website is updated. Stories in a newsfeed often comprise of a headline, a synopsis and a hyperlink to the full article on the originators website. Older stories drop off the end of the newsfeed as new updates are made to the website. The benefits of managing information using newsfeeds can be summed up as:
Newsfeeds are cost-effective to produce because the underlying technical infrastructure required is low-cost. Information is transmitted as text and as such is quickly delivered and presented. They are convenient for a busy audience since news from a variety of websites is trawled and presented as in a personalised newspaper. Unlike email there is no spam. The information is always the most up-to-date and any updates are clearly indicated. You need a newsreader application (sometimes called a news aggregator) to read newsfeeds. There are many examples of newsfeed readers out there, with different types available - some are stand-alone applications, some are web-based, some are plug-ins to web browsers. Here are a few links to get you started:
If you have difficulty installing applications, a web-based service like Bloglines (http://www.bloglines.com/) might be better for you – it works in a similar way to other newsreaders and has the advantage that you can logon from any computer (as long as it is connected to the internet). Some web browsers are starting to integrate newsreading features. Users of the Firefox browser (http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/) can install extention software called Sage (http://sage.mozdev.org/) that automatically discovers newsfeeds on a web page – all you have to do is select the feed you want to subscribe to. Pluck (http://www.pluck.com/) is a similar tool for users of version 6 of Internet Explorer. Other uses of newsfeeds The full potential for using newsfeeds is yet to be realised. It is clearly beneficial for managing information that quickly changes. Applications of RSS now include:
Technical specifications The following links provide information for a more technical audience. There are a variety of formats for newsfeeds. Here are some links to the common ones:
The list of feeds someone subscribes to (called a blogroll) can be exchanged using another format called OPML (Outline Processor Markup Language). More information on OPML can be found here (http://www.opml.org/). |
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