RSS

From LIS 460 Summer 2007

1 RSS (Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary)
2 Types of RSS Readers
3 Defining Webpages to be Monitored
4 Uses of RSS in a School Library
5 Questions I Still Have
6 Sources/Links

RSS (Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary)

RSS is a technology that allows a user to easily view new content of favorite websites. Its original purpose was to aggregate information from news sources. RSS eliminates the need to manually check individual webpages for changes. By using RSS, one can easily keep up with new information as it becomes available in a variety of places on the Internet.

In order to use RSS to track changes to webpages, a software product referred to as an "RSS reader", or aggregator, is used, which automates the checking of webpages. Some RSS readers are downloaded and installed on a user's computer; others are web-based software. When the RSS reader is used, it reports the monitored webpages which have changed since the last time the user read them.

A video describing RSS can be seen here. Another popular explanatory video, RSS in Plain English, is found on YouTube.

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Types of RSS Readers

A quick look for "RSS readers" reveals that there are many different software products that provide this service, many of them free. Readers can be web-based or client-based. Web-based readers have the advantage of being available from any computer, such as a public computer in a library. Client-based readers are downloaded and installed on a personal computer and can only be accessed from that computer.

Examples of web-based readers are Google Reader and Bloglines.

Mozilla Firefox supports RSS feeds with live bookmarks, and Sage, a Firefox extension is also available. These are examples of client-based RSS readers, because they are integrated with a particular browser.

iTunes and other podcatchers are aggregators which use RSS to locate and collect audio and video media on the Internet, from feeds that have been selected by the user. iTunes is another example of a client-based aggregator, which has to be downloaded to be used. This is reasonable because most people use iTunes with an iPod, which needs to be plugged into the computer to have audio or video transferred to it, something you are more likely to do from a home computer than a public one.

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Defining Webpages to be Monitored

A webpage may have a symbol that identifies it as an RSS "feed" (a webpage that is configured so that it can be monitored by an RSS reader.) The RSS symbol may be a small orange icon located in the corner of a webpage. This orange icon was created by Mozilla, and later adopted by Microsoft.

The method may vary between RSS readers, but, in general, the user must define the URL of webpages to be monitored. If there is an RSS symbol on the page you wish to monitor, click on it. In some cases, this is enough to add it to your RSS reader. In other cases, it will instead cause a page of html code to appear. If this occurs, copy and paste the URL of the html code page into the RSS reader to subscribe to the feed.

Sometimes there is not an RSS symbol on a web page; in this case, you may be able to subscribe to the webpage by using it's URL. The RSS reader will give a failure message if this is unsuccessful.

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Uses of RSS in a School Library

A librarian could use RSS to monitor professional resources, such as:

- Library of Congress http://www.loc.gov/rss/

- OCLC http://www.oclc.org/rss/default.htm

- ALA http://www.ala.org/Template.cfm?Section=News&template=/cfapps/xml/pr_inst.html

- School Library Journal http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/learnRss

A school librarian could use RSS to monitor educational websites containing subject matter that teachers have requested or topics that are taught each year, so that new electronic resources can be evaluated on an ongoing basis.

A school librarian can create RSS feeds in resources they build such as webquests, subject guides, and pathfinders, so students and teachers can be made aware when the resources are changed.

Students and teachers can use RSS to monitor resources that pertain to a particular subject area. RSS feeds can be built to search blogs or automate Internet searches using Google News or Yahoo News. This can be accomplished by creating a search in either of these products, then clicking on the RSS feed symbol that appears on the search results page, and copying and pasting the resulting URL into the RSS reader.

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Questions I Still Have

If a webpage does not have an RSS symbol on it, is there any way to monitor it with an RSS reader? (i.e. is there software that can dynamically create the RSS feed information?)

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