1. RSS What can it do for you? Rachel Hyland Systems Librarian
Image credit: 13.c

2. RSS ?
Rich
Site
Summary or
Really
Simple
Syndication

3. What are RSS feeds?
RSS feeds provide a way for you to passively receive newly released content such as text, web pages, sound files, or other media.

4. RSS – Two Parts
Feeds – These are the actual content items that are produced by web authors. These could be taken from blogs, journals, news sites, etc.
Aggregators/Readers – An aggregator is a program or site that collects the feeds for reading. Aggregators can be installed as stand-alone programs, or they can be web-based.

5. Who is generating RSS feeds?
Just about everyone on the Web…
Blogs
Podcasts
The Weather Channel, The Food Network
Library Subscription Databases-Academic Search Premier, Business Source Premier, Gale Power Search
Major news outlets: CNN, ABC, Fox News, MSNBC
Newspapers, Magazines and Journals
iTunes ???

6. Advantages of RSS
By using an aggregator, you can read feeds from multiple websites in one location.
No SPAM!
No Pop-Ups!
Most blogs now have feeds, and more journals and news sites are adding them.
Organization!

7. What to look for
Here are a few symbols to look for on a web page to see if it offers RSS feeds

8. S u b c r i e
We’ve had digital audio for a long time – you can listen to it in real-time, you can download it, you can take it on the go. We’ve been able to do that for a long time. The key to podcasting is in the subscribe – that’s what makes it different. Like with text-base sources, with RSS users can pull out the audio content they want, and access it when and where they want.

9. How is this helpful? Time Saver
Eliminates some need for and spam
Targeted content for classes or interests
Tool for teaching information literacy?

10. RSS Readers/Aggregators
RSS readers enable you to collect and display RSS feeds. By automatically retrieving updates, you get new content as it is posted!

11. All kinds of things can be syndicated this way

12. Educational Uses
Add a feed to your VISTA shell for reference material, additional readings
Keep track of research articles
Automatically run favorite searches
Create a dynamic visual collection of information sources on a topic

13. RSS Google Reader: http://www.google.com/reader
Pageflakes: Netvibes:
iGoogle Page
MyYahoo
IE 7 and Firefox toolbars

14. Thank You! Questions, Answers, Ideas?
Please contact me for a one-on-one session to add RSS to your classes or personal routine.
Questions, Answers, Ideas?
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