TOC Syndication using RSS Tony Hammond, Elsevier Timo Hannay & Ben Lund, NPG 17 September 2003

What is RSS? A lightweight XML format for syndicating news titles, links and descriptions Developed by Netscape, more recently adopted by the blogging community Consumed by (e.g.): Users with desktop readers Webmasters who want to embed titles from other sites in their own pages

Example of an RSS feed BBC News | News Front Page | UK Edition Updated every minute of every day en-gb Tue, 16 Sep 03 09:21:32 GMT Copyright: (C) British Broadcasting Corporation, BBC News Hutton witnesses face tough questions Witnesses at the inquiry into Dr David Kelly's death will face cross-examination, a day after a BBC boss and a spy chief gave evidence. Deadly blast ends Japan siege At least three people are killed in an explosion in an office where a disgruntled worker had taken hostages. …

Example of an RSS feed

Different versions of RSS Atom 1.0 Simple: Plain XML Extensible: RDF/XML = most popular formats

Example of a TOC in RSS

<rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf=" xmlns=" xmlns:dc=" xmlns:prism=" > Nature International weekly journal of science Nature Publishing Group en-GB Copyright (C) 2003 Nature Publishing Group Nature Science and the war on terror Two years after the attacks on the World Trade Center, the promised reorientation of US national research priorities proceeds without much direction or conviction. doi: /425107a Nature 425, 107 (2003) Nature Editorials 107

PRISM module for RSS 1.0 Allows additional bibliographic information: ISSN, name, volume, issue, start page DOI Publication date Article type Corrections References Etc. Adds to metadata that can be captured with existing RSS Dublin Core modules

Using feeds of feeds

Using feeds of feeds with TOCs Publisher RSS service Journals Volumes Issues Towards a lightweight OAI-PMH? Years

Why syndicated TOCs with RSS? Publishers: Sends more people to your content Greater range of potential uses than – e.g, embedding in third-party web pages Readers: Allows greater control than Can be easily aggregated and filtered to create custom feeds

Whats wrong with RSS? Multiple standards, often ill-defined Most desktop readers still at beta or v1.0 Uses more bandwidth than (Virtually) text only, no rich media capability Not yet clear how best to use it as a platform for marketing and advertising

The only near certainties RSS is here to stay Use will continue to grow Applications will get more diverse If your users arent already asking for it, they soon will

Further reading RSS for Publishers: XML.com: Why choose RSS 1.0? by Tony Hammond, 23 July 2003 Content Syndication with RSS by Ben Hammersley, OReilly & Associates