Exploration 4 - RSS Feeds and Feed Readers

Will Require: Reading about RSS and signing up for your own Feeder plus adding feeds of AACPL staff to the list.
Time@ 20 minutes of reading, @45 minutes to create Feeder and add Feeds

From Maryland Libraries Learning 2.0

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.

A feed reader (also called a newsreader or aggregator) is an application that automatically gathers updates to blogs, news sites and other Web sites so that you can view all this content in one place, rather than taking the time to visit each site individually. You determine what sources will be represented in your feed reader by choosing which ones to subscribe to. For example, staff could set up a reader page that gathers the latest news from Library Journal , recent posts from the ALA Editions blog, and the Top News from the Washington Post for use when there are slow times at the desk. A patron might use a feed reader for similar professional purposes, or for keeping up with entertainment events like blog posts by their favorite actors or communities that share recipes. The Feed Reader is designed to bring the information to you.

While there are some feed reading applications that are downloaded directly to a computer, there are also a number of free feed readers available on the web, which have the benefit of allowing you to log in to your feed reader from anywhere you go online. Bloglines is one of the more popular of these (though if you are using a Blogger, you now have a Google account and access to their web-based reader GoogleReader).

Most sites that provide ongoing updates, or “feeds”, to your feed reader do so by using a format called RSS (short for “Really Simple Syndication”). While a blog will likely have only one feed emanating from it, a larger site might have multiple feeds to choose from – a different feed for each of several columnists, for example. To see if a site you’re interested in offers an RSS feed, look for a link to the feed on the site, very often represented by an orange symbol like this:

Adding feeds to your feed reader is easy, and whatever feed reader you choose should provide simple instructions for how to do this.

Still a little confused? Watch this introduction to feed readers created by Palinet:
Feed Me: A gentle introduction to Internet feeds

Some library systems now provide RSS feeds on their websites:

• Allegany County has an Events feed on their main page. Visitors to their site can read the scrolling text, but they can also have the feed of this text sent to their readers.



• Kent County Public Library has a news blog that they offer via email or via RSS Feed.



• Howard County Library offers a few pre-defined feeds but also allows patrons the ability to create their own feeds that send updates about specific areas of the catalog.

Now you try. Sign up for a feed reader, like Bloglines (you do not have to use Bloglines if you already have another reader you are familiar with). For easier browsing, you might want to open up a second browser window. Just go up to File -> New -> Window (or press Ctrl+N).

First, add the feed for the AACPL Exploration blog (not sure how? Here is a 5 step walkthrough).
Then add at least 3 RSS feeds from other AACPL Explorers so you can read about their adventures so far.

Take the time to read some of their posts and leave a comment on their blog (after all, Web 2.0 is all about interaction and participation.)

Then post to your own blog about this exploration. Not sure what to talk about? Think about:
- ways AACPL could use RSS Feeds
- the pros and cons of using RSS feeds
- How can RSS and Feed Readers be valuable to you in your personal web viewing? Professional web viewing? How about patrons?