Thing 2

Welcome to Thing 2!

Add RSS feeds of your choice to your iGoogle page and explore other RSS feeds.

What is an RSS feed & is it relevant to libraries and archives?
RSS (commonly known as Really Simple Syndication) allows you to view new content from web sites, blog entries, etc in one place.

Instead of visiting each website to check for new information, the user simply checks his or her reader, which has collected and organized all of the new content using RSS. In short, when you set up an RSS reader and subscribe to the content (feeds) you choose, it's just like creating a customized newspaper or magazine containing only the stories, media and information you want to read, delivered "fresh" to you every day - spam-free, ad-free, and just-plain free!
A fuller and more technical definition can be found on Wikipedia.

Why is it called a feed?

Essentially, you (via your RSS reader) are being fed new content (news, blog posts, journal articles, book and movie reviews, images, podcasts, etc). You don't have to go out and get it. It just comes to you.

What do I need to take advantage of this RSS stuff?

There are two basic parts to using RSS - first is the feed, which will be available as a link or icon on the website or blog you want to subscribe to, and second is the reader (or aggregator), which is the container that manages all of your subscriptions (or feeds). There are a number of different readers available. For this course, we will use Google Reader, a free, simple, browser-based reader. Basically, it's like this : You visit a website you like, click the RSS feed/subscription link and add or paste the URL into your reader.

Then, you visit your reader anytime you want to see what's new at all of the sites you have subscribed to. Newspapers, major news channels (such as the CBC), and journal providers have RSS feeds available, to name but a few. Libraries also have feeds from their web pages, such as the OU and the British Library - some local examples can be found at the Public Health Agency, the Globe & Mail , or the Toronto Public Library

Step-by-step instructions
1. Go to the Canadian Library Association website.
2. Under Resources, select RSS feeds
3. Click on CLA News RSS and choose select Subscribe with Google.

4. Add to Google Homepage

Now, whenever new material is posted to CLA News, it will appear on your iGoogle page

You may have noticed that there is also a choice to add to Google Reader.

To set up your Google Reader, simply visit http://reader.google.com and log in with your Google Account. You can also just log into your gmail account and click reader in the upper left corner of the gmail window (The first time you log in, you will see a welcome screen containing sample "recommended" feed items -- you aren't subscribed to anything yet).

Add a few feeds of your choice.

You may find this instructional video helpful in using the reader :)

Other aggregators include Bloglines, MyYahoo, Pageflakes, Netvibes, Newsgator, for other aggregators.