WebJunction

No! Not Another TLA (Three-Letter Acronym)!

We know—the use of acronyms can get crazy sometimes. But RSS is more than just another acronym; it is a great service that can make it easy to stay current with your favorite subjects. 

If you have ever wondered how some of your colleagues can stay on top of all the changes in the field or why they get all the latest library stories, chances are that they are using RSS as one of their secret weapons. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and it allows you to receive electronic notification of new content added to the websites or blogs that you are interested in —so you don't need to visit those sites one by one to see if anything is new.

It isn't hard to use RSS, but you need to do a few things to get the ball rolling. You can get set up and ready to go in about 3 minutes, and it can save you hours of time visiting different websites during the week, hoping to find new information on your favorite topics.

How RSS Works

Feeds:  Websites and blogs can offer an optional service to their readers called RSS feeds. Think of an RSS feed as something for your mind to munch on! Subscribing to an RSS feed is a lot like getting a magazine subscription. It's cheaper and easier to have a magazine subscription delivered to you than to pick a copy up at the grocery store. Subscribing to RSS feeds can save you time, too. Remember that in order to subscribe, the website or blog needs to offer a feed (and not all do). Look for an RSS icon or a link to a RSS subscription page as an indicator that the site offers feeds.
 
Feed Reader:  Also known as an aggregator or newsreader, a feed reader manages your subscriptions and alerts you when new content is available. There are many readers available and most of them are free. Two of the most popular services are Bloglines and Google Reader. (There is even an article on Bloglines for Librarians that you might find useful.) One of the great things about these services is that they are web-based and can be accessed from anywhere you access the Internet. Just log in to the reader and see a list of all your feeds and receive alerts as to which pages have been updated. Then you can click and link to any of the available updates that interest you. This saves you time because you can go to one place to find out which of your favorite sites has new information,  instead of visiting them individually and checking.

The feeds and the feed reader will work together behind the scenes, working technology magic to bring new content right to you. Almost sounds too easy, but it's true.

RSS on WebJunction:  Whenever you see the orange RSS icon in the title of a page on WebJunction, it means you can subscribe to a feed for that section. When you click the icon, you are taken to a page that will look like gibberish to most people. But in the address bar of the browser, you'll see something similar to this : http://webjunction.org/do/rss?id=14860 . It looks just like a website address and you can copy and paste this URL into your feed reader to add a subscription for this page. Many feed readers can also automatically detect when an RSS feed is available and can add it to your list just by clicking one button.

Getting Started

Visit the Bloglines or Google Reader site (or one of the others listed here) and sign up for an account. Both services have a search feature so you can use that to actually find websites and blogs that have feeds. Just type in a keyword and scan the results for websites and blogs that might interest you. You can add and remove subscriptions whenever you want and you will find that feeding your mind with new information can be quick and easy with the help of RSS.

WebJunction also hosts a comprehensive self-paced, interactive online course RSS: Benefits for You and Your Library. (While the class costs $99, it is very carefully designed and has proven very useful to scores of library folks.)

If you run into trouble, have more questions, or have an experience to share, you can visit our Social Software discussions where you'll find friendly WJ members to chat with.