All the News You Thought You Wanted: Managing News, Tables of Contents, and Blog Postings with RSS Feeds

All the News You Thought You Wanted Managing News, Tables of Contents, Blog Postings, and Alerts with RSS Patricia Weiss, MLIS February 27, 2007

What is RSS?

R eally S imple S yndication or R ich S ite S ummary

Commonly conceived of as tool for gathering news items from different sources

We’ll define “news” broadly to include new content on any Web site.

RSS is a technical specification for syndicating information (i.e., distributing it to multiple Web sites for online publication).

The available RSS output from a Web site is called a feed .

Atom is another popular feed format.

Why is RSS useful?

"We track your favorite news , blogs , weather , and classifieds so that you don't have to." (Bloglines)

“ Your inbox for the web. ” (Google Reader)

The goal: Pull new information from lots of different Web sites you’re interested in and turn it into a single Web page that will organize your reading and help you keep current.

Just a little bit about the technical side… Markup Languages

A markup language is a set of codes that determine how Web content looks or how it is structured.

Examples

HTML (hyptertext markup language)

XML (extensible markup language)

Just a little bit about the technical side… Markup Language Viewers

In order to display the content but not the codes, the coded content must be viewed using the right kind of software.

HTML viewer = Web browser

Examples: Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Safari

XML viewer = RSS aggregator

Aggregators are also called news readers.

Examples: Bloglines, Google Reader, Netvibes

Example: JAMA Home Page HTML-Coded Content

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> <HEAD> <TITLE>JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association</TITLE>  <link rel="stylesheet" href="http://jama.ama-assn.org/css/basic.css" type="text/css" media="all" /> <style type="text/css" media="screen,print"> @import "http://jama.ama-assn.org/css/site.css"; </style> <link rel="stylesheet" href="http://jama.ama-assn.org/css/handheld.css" type="text/css" media="handheld" /> <META NAME="description" CONTENT="JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association, is a highly cited weekly medical journal that publishes peer-reviewed new medical research findings and editorial opinions on a wide variety of topics important to clinical practice and biomedical science. JAMA has the largest circulation of any medical journal in the world and is received each week by physicians in virtually every specialty and practice setting">

HTML content viewed with Firefox

Example: JAMA Current Issue RSS Feed XML-Coded Content

<rdf:RDF>

−

<channel rdf:about="http://jama.ama-assn.org">

<title>JAMA current issue</title>

<link>http://jama.ama-assn.org</link>

−

<description>

JAMA is a weekly primary science, peer-reviewed medical journal published 48 times per year. JAMA publishes original high quality, high impact clinical and research articles on a diverse range of medical topics.

</description>

<prism:eIssn>1538-3598</prism:eIssn>

<prism:coverDisplayDate>February 21, 2007</prism:coverDisplayDate>

−

<prism:publicationName>

JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association

</prism:publicationName>

<prism:issn>0098-7484</prism:issn>

−

<items>

−

<rdf:Seq>

<rdf:li rdf:resource="http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/short/295.8.jed60009v1?rss=1"/>

<rdf:li rdf:resource="http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/short/297/7/673?rss=1"/>

XML content viewed with Bloglines

Getting Started

Choose aggregator and set up account.

Add content (subscribe to RSS feeds).

News

Tables of contents

Blog postings

Alerts (search updates)

Manage content.

Share content if desired.

Choosing an RSS Aggregator

Desktop aggregators are applications that must be installed on your computer.

Web browsers’ built-in RSS tools (Mozilla Firefox’s Live Bookmarks, Internet Explorer Onfolio), may provide only one-at-a-time, instead of all-in-one place, access to feeds.

Web-based aggregators do not require installation.

Good Web-Based Aggregators

Bloglines, www.bloglines.com

One of the oldest

Very basic, list-based display

Google Reader, www.google.com/reader/

Yet another Google product that works well

Netvibes, www.netvibes.com

Provides graphical as well as list-based display options

Bloglines

Google Reader

Netvibes

Ways to Locate Feeds on Content Web Sites

RSS directories such as Feedster ( www.feedster.com )

Look for these icons

Look for links from these terms: subscribe, syndicate, feed, RSS, XML, Atom

Try searching the Web site for “RSS.”

For journals, check Subscribe/Subscription or E-mail/Alerts pages.

Some sites don’t have RSS.

Examples - Finding Feeds

New England Journal of Medicine, www.nejm.org

Article Feeds link on home page

In About RSS at the NEJM Online , click on Current Issue Feed .

Copy URL from Web site address window and paste into reader.

National Guidelines Clearinghouse, www.guidelines.gov

Resources=>Web Developer Tools

In Welcome to RSS , right click on NGC Basic File link

Instead of opening the XML file to copy URL, you can just right-click on link or icon to Copy Link Location.

davidrothman.net, davidrothman.net

Syndication, click on share icon

Subscribe Now! box lets you choose from popular readers

Getting Started Adding Content

This is straightforward for news, table of contents, and blog postings.

Google Reader: Add subscription

Search or add feed URL

Browse options

Feed bundles (News, Sports, Fun, etc.)

Add user name for someone whose work (blog, tags, etc.) you want to follow.

Bloglines: Add (note Search Feeds at top right)

Netvibes: Add a Feed

Creating a Feed for a PubMed Search

Do a search.

In Send to dropdown box, choose RSS Feed .

In next screen, click on Create Feed button.

New articles retrieved by your search will appear in the aggregator.

Creating a Feed for a PubMed Search

Search feeds can also be created when saving a search history in:

ISI Web of Knowledge

Scopus

Organizing Content

Bloglines: Top Level, existing folder, new folder

GR: Tags

Netvibes: Move (can add new category)

Reading and Managing Content

Read/unread status

Bolding generally indicates an unread item or folder containing unread items.

Bloglines “Keep New,” “Mark All Read”

Google Reader “Mark as read”

Netvibes “Read All,” “Unread All”

Keyboard shortcuts (example: Bloglines hotkeys)

Saving Content

Bloglines: Clippings

GR: Starred items

Moving Content

Once you have added content, you can…

… save (export) it. File will be in OPML format.

… switch to a different reader and add content automatically by importing the OPML file.

Social Side of RSS

Bloglines clip blog (can go public or be kept private)

Netvibes ecosystem

Publishing on Netvibes ecosystem

Tab sharing (publishing some or all of your feed list or blogroll)

Google Reader

Shared items

Add subscriptions, Browse: Enter user name for person whose work you want to follow.

Will reading and managing new info through an RSS reader simplify things for me?

Single source instead of multiple e-mail messages can streamline keeping current.

Blog content is more commonly distributed through RSS than through e-mail.

Evaluating the process

Average Bloglines user follows >20 feeds.

Google Reader trends: How much of what you’ve subscribed to are you actually reading?

Pat Weiss

Reference & Information Technology

Librarian

Health Sciences Library System

University of Pittsburgh

[email_address]

All the News You Thought You Wanted: Managing News, Tables of Contents, and Blog Postings with RSS Feeds

0 comments

Notes on slide 1

1 Favorite