RSS Feeds

 

RSS Feeds Advantages to RSS Feeds Current Awareness Catalogues Ejournals Databases Republishing Content Examples Software Further Reading

 

Advantages to RSS Feeds

 

• No Spam (at least not yet)
• Push technology, without being as aggressive as email

• Easy to maintain subscription list; responsibility is on the receiver not the distributor
• Easy form of distribution; no list for the writer to maintain
• Can allow for the expansion to podcast distribution

 

 

Current Awareness

Besides the usual feeds from blogs and news sites, RSS feeds are starting to appear in more scholarly sources.

 

Catalogues

• New materials at UBC Library
• New materials at YC Library, tutorial http://ycdl2.yukoncollege.yk.ca/rsscatalogue/

 

Ejournals

• University of Saskatchewan maintains lists of titles and publishers that offer RSS feeds.
• The latest release of Open Journal Systems (OJS), the open source software developed by the Public Knowledge Project features RSS to alert readers to the latest articles in the journal.

 

Databases

• CSA - expected to add RSS feeds to their databases this summer
• EBSCO - save search as an alert and select the "No email (RSS only)" option (more details)
• Engineering Village - run a search and click on the RSS icon (more details)
• Proquest - set up RSS feeds for dissertations & theses or business articles
• PubMed - run a search and select "RSS feed" from the "Send to" menu (more details)
• Web of Science - to set up an RSS feed, create a saved search first

 

 

Republishing Content

Instead of viewing RSS feeds in a reader, content can be republished on web pages. 

 

Examples

• SPAN 404 (Hispanic Cinema) course page - feeds from cultural sections of 2 Spanish newspapers are republished in the yellow sidebar
• Anthropology subject guide - Anthropology News from the Library is republished from the anthropology blog, and New Books on Anthropology is a feed from New Materials at UBC Library 
• Ornithology subject guide - A Little Bird Told Me is news that has been fed from a del.icio.us linkroll. The linkroll itself is created manually by monitoring science news feeds in Bloglines and tagging relevant items using del.icio.us 
• Diabetes: A Brief Resource Guide (Irving K. Barber Learning Centre) - includes an RSS feed from PubMed of articles written for consumers and freely available online in full text. One of a number of resource guides on consumer health topics that use the same model. Wondering how to do this yourself? Check out the online PubMed Help book.
• Irving K. Barber Learning Centre home page - "Highlights & Upcoming Events"  is an RSS feed from the Learning Centre blog, which provides information on current news and events relating to the Learning Centre.

 

Software

• Bloglines - web-based RSS reader to monitor feeds (see also Google Reader)
• Feed2JS - generate javascript from a feed to republish content on a web page (no login required)
• FEEDblendr - mix two or more feeds together (see also Feedshake)
• aggRSSive - mix two or more feeds together and generate javascript to republish content on a web page
• del.icio.us - social bookmarking tool with ability to feed a page and create javascript to republish content (linkrolls and tagrolls)  

 

 

Further Reading

 

Barsky, Eugene. (2006). RSS Trends for Health Librarians. Canadian Journal of the Health Libraries Association. 2006; 27(1): 7 - 8. Available online: http://pubs.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/jchla/jchla27/c06-001.pdf.

 

Fichter, Darlene. (2004). Using RSS to Create New Services. Online. July/August 2004: 52 – 55.

 

Matthews, Steve. (2006). Top Ten Uses for RSS in Law Firms. Vancouver Law Librarian Blog. 26 September 2006: http://vancouverlawlib.blogspot.com/2006/09/top-10-uses-for-rss-in-law-firms.html.

 

RSS Compendium - exhaustive resource of RSS directories, feeds, readers, re-mixers and more.

 

Stephens, Michael. (2006). RSS. Library Technology Reports. July/August 2006: 36 – 44.