Week 3 RSS Readers and Feeds

Have you seen this small funny tags on websites? Do you know what it means? If you are not sure of the answer to either of those questions, don’t worry you’re still in the majority, but this is changing rapidly. This is a sign for RSS. In the information world, RSS is not only revolutionalizing the way news, media and content creators share information, but it also is swiftly changing the way everyday users are consuming information.

RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication” and is a file format for delivering regularly updated information over the web.Just think about the websites and news information sources you visit every day. It takes time to visit those sites and scour the ad-filled and image-heavy pages for just the text you want to read, doesn’t it? Now imagine if you could visit all those information sources and web pages in just one place and all at the same time … without being bombarded with advertising… without having to search for new information on the page you’d already seen or read before… and without having to consume a lot of time visiting each site individually. Would that be valuable to you? Well, it’s available now through a newsreader and RSS.


This week’s discovery exercises focus on learning about RSS news feeds and setting up a Bloglines or GoogleReader account (a free online newsreader) for yourself to bring your feeds together.

Discovery Resources:
Feed Me: A gentle introduction to Internet feeds - a good tutorial from Palinet, a library cooperative

Google Reader In Plain English YouTube tutorial on Google Reader

Using Bloglines Tutorial (how to keep up with dozens of blogs everyday) – This online tutorial walks you through how to setup a Bloglines account and add newsfeeds. Follow Steps 1 to 3 to set up your Bloglines account. Steps 4 – 9 are optional and cover how to subscribe to different types of feeds (podcasts, Flickr albums, etc)


Adding RSS Feeds to Bloglines - A short YouTube video created showing how to add feeds.



Additional Bloglines news feed subcription information (screenshot image)


Don't forget to tap the knowledge of your co-workers. Working through the discovery process to gether can be fun.

Discovery Exercise:

1. Follow the discovery resources above to learn more about RSS and newsreaders.
2. Create a free online Bloglines or Google Reader account for yourself and subscribe to at least 3 newsfeeds to your reader. See Using Bloglines Tutorial steps 1-3 for instructions.

Newsfeeds:
Subscribe to several of your co-workers' feeds.
This is as easy as typing the blog URL into the subscribe field in Bloglines. Try it, it's easy!
Then try adding a other types of news feeds that you will enjoy personally.

The Learning 2.0 blog feed
Charlotte.Com news feeds (pick at least one)
Reader’s Club new review feeds
Unshelved - Library cartoon feed
RSS Feeds from the Daviess County Public Library

Create a post in your blog about this exercise.

Don’t know what to blog about?
Think about these questions:

• What do you like about RSS and newsreaders?
• How do you think you might be able to use this technology in your work or personal life?
• How can libraries use RSS or take advantage of this new technology?
• Which customer do you want to tell about our RSS feeds?