Download Are You Hungry Yet? RSS Feeds and the New Ways we Collect

Sarah Burns Feyl, Assistant University Librarian
Pace University Faculty Institute, May 2008
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Become familiar with RSS feeds – what are
they, why are they helpful
Learn about web sites and tools for locating
interesting blogs / feeds
Know how to create an account in Google
Reader and subscribe to some feeds
Know how to create an Alert from a library
article database
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RSS is “a family of XML file formats for web
syndication used by websites and weblogs.”
 Rich Site Summary
 RDF Site Summary
 Really Simple Syndication
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RSS Feeds are like transmitters that enable a
website to send out a signal when there is
new content.
That signal can be harnessed by an RSS
feed aggregator or reader
Source: http://www.infomancer.net/files/rss-basics.ppt
RSS: Really Simple Syndication
Story is written
Story appears here
http://condor.depaul.edu/~cross5/rss.ppt
RSS Syndication
Article or “post” is written
(usually on a blog)
Article appears in
your feed reader
http://condor.depaul.edu/~cross5/rss.ppt
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Common Craft Video
◦ “Our product is explanation. We use video and paper to
make complex ideas easy to understand.”
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http://commoncraft.com/rss_plain_english
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwtmOPdrEL8
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There are many different types of
aggregators
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Web-based (Bloglines, Google Reader)
Desktop (FeedReader, FeedDemon)
E-mail (Thunderbird, GMail, R|Mail)
Web Browser (Firefox plug-ins)
Mobile phone
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On the web pages you regularly visit, blogs
The Pace Library Catalog
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Via search tools
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News sites usually provide a variety of feeds
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Sites in a discipline, i.e. higher education
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◦ http://innopac.pace.edu/feeds/newtitlesrss.xml
 Bloglines: http://www.bloglines.com/
 New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/
 Chronicle of Higher Education:
http://chronicle.com/blogs/
(go to main page, click for Blogs)
 Inside Higher Ed:
http://insidehighered.com/frontpagerss2
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Academic journals and publishers– many academic
publishers have begun syndicating feeds for their
journals:
 American Chemical Society Journals (click
“Publications”)
 American Psychological Association Journals
 Cambridge Journals
 Oxford Journals (From this list, choose a journal, go to
its page, and in the lower right corner, copy the link
location of the "XML RSS feed" under "Alerting Services")
 University of California Press
 University of Chicago Press
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Library article databases such as:
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Academic Search Premier
Research Library
ABI/Inform
PsycInfo
CINAHL
Also consider “Alerts” or “T of C” (Table of
Contents) services from library databases
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Reading? Eating?
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Google Reader
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http://google.com
Sign in or create a new Google account
From the “more” list, select “Reader”
Click “Help” for directions and troubleshooting
Click “Discover” to browse or search for feeds
Use the “Add a Subscription” link to add a feed to
your reader
Thank you for your time and interest!
Sarah Burns Feyl, Assistant University Librarian
for Instructional Services
[email protected]