INTRODUCING RSS

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INTRODUCING RSS

• Ingrid Thomson
• Subject Librarian Humanities Information
  Division
• University of Cape Town Libraries
• ingrid_at_uctlib.uct.ac.za

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SEEN THESE ICONS BEFORE?
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WHAT IS RSS?

• Geeky explanation
• XML-based format
• Really Simple Syndication, Rich Site Summary, RDF
  Summary, Atom,
• Non-techie explanation
• A way of receiving updated and new content from
  blogs and other web pages in one place

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FORMAT OF A FEED

• Title
• Brief descriptive content
• URL or Link to full story
• Other media enclosures like mp3 files, videos,
  photos -- not just text

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WHAT INFO CAN I GET FROM RSS?

• Many bookmarked web sites that you check
  regularly
• News headlines, weather and any other news real
  time news
• Web search engines and databases you use provide
  feeds for your search results
• Journals in your research fields or areas of
  interest provide feeds to new issues as they are
  published

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HOW TO START USING RSS

• Need to have a reader or aggregator on your pc
• Desktop or web-based readers like Bloglines
• Personal portals like My Yahoo! My MSN Gmail
• Set your email box free or have the feeds come to
  your email

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SETTING UP A WEB-BASED READER

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ADDING FEEDS

• Catalogue of feeds comes with the reader
• One-click subscription
• RSS icon
• Syndicate this site or news feed or site
  feed
• Directory of feeds like Syndic8
  http//www.syndic8.com

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HOW DO I ADD FEEDS?

• Subscribing to a feed
• Copy and paste URL from the RSS link on the web
  page into your reader
• Right click on the orange button and select Copy
  shortcut or Copy link location
• Go the reader and enter the feed address right
  clicking and paste.

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MUSHROOMING FEEDS
RSS Feeds from 2001 2006 Source
http//www.syndic8.com/stats.php (accessed 15 May
2006)
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SEARCH ENGINES
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NEWS HEADLINES
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ACADEMIC JOURNALS AND MAGAZINES

• Table of Contents
• Sage Journals, Blackwells, Oxford Journals
  Online, Emerald, IngentaConnect , and Individual
  Publications
• http//library.usask.ca/ejournals/rss_feeds.php

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ACADEMIC JOURNALS AND LIBRARY DATABASES

• DATABASES
• Two ways to use databases
• Create journal alerts
• Search-based alerts
• EBSCO, PROQUEST, PubMed

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ATTACHED TO YOUR EMAIL?