#7 - Less Stress with RSS (& Newsreaders)

You've heard of RSS? You’ve seen these icons (the ones to the right) on your favorite websites? Well, what will they do for you?

RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication.” It uses XML (the second icon) and allows you to be notified when content on a website has been updated. With RSS you can track information posted on all kinds of new and familiar online news sources. RSS has revolutionized the way news, media and content creators share information. It is also swiftly changing the way everyday users are consuming information.

Just think about the websites and news information sources you visit everyday. It takes time to visit those sites and scour the ad-filled and image-heavy pages for the particular text you want to read, doesn’t it? Now imagine if you could visit your favorite 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 podcast focuses on the enabling power of RSS and speculates somewhat on its possible future at KCLS.

Click the Play button above
to hear this week's Podcast (2:38)
Rafe Needleman, editor for CNET.com Business Buying Advice, gives an illustrative 3 1/2 minute introduction to RSS feeds, how they work, and how you use them. Take a look: RSS - Feel the Need for Feeds (3:32). You'll need speakers or headphones to watch this - if these aren't available at your location, take a look instead at a similarly-themed text-based tutorial from Palinet (Palinet is an east coast library cooperative).

Whether you watch Rafe's video or check out the Palinet tutorial, you'll see several references to reader software. This software is the key to keeping track of your preferred RSS feeds. For the purposes of participating in KCLS Learning 2.0, we'd like you to use Bloglines. Why? It's easy to use, it's popular, it's feature-rich and it's free...

Now you get to give it a go in today's Discovery Exercise in which you'll set up a Bloglines account and add a bunch of RSS feeds.

1. Go to Bloglines (link will open in a new window) and set up your personal account.
   
   
2. Subscribe to 2 RSS feeds.
   
   How?
   
   First, find the RSS feed. Look for XML or RSS buttons (the same ones you saw at the start of this lesson) on your favorite websites. And it's not just text-heavy sites - even your Flickr photo pages have RSS feeds (look to the bottom of a Flickr page for the feed icon). Click on the icon and select the resulting URL at the top of your web browser - this is what you'll copy then paste into Bloglines. Second, go back to your Bloglines account and click on the 'Add' link in the left side of the screen.
   
   Looking for more visual instructions? Take a look at this excellent tutorial on preetamrai.com. Just keep in mind that some of the bloglines buttons used in the tutorial have changed.
   
   Curious about the various Bloglines check boxes when you add your RSS feed? Take a look at this descriptive screen shot Helene Blowers created for her library's Learning 2.0 program.
   
   
3. Subscribe to at least 2 of the RSS feeds from your co-worker's Learning 2.0 blogs. These blogs are linked from our particpants page. All you'll have to do here is type the blog URL (for example, this blog is http://kcls27things.blogspot.com) into the subscribe field in Bloglines. Try it, it's easy!
   
   Still confused? Never fear - watch this short YouTube video created by our Learning 2.0 guru Helene Blowers .
   
   
4. Make it official - subscribe to the KCLS Learning 2.0 feed via Bloglines. Like in the examples above, paste the blog URL into the subscribe field...
   
   
5. Subscribe to at least 1 of the following news and/or library-themed feeds:
   - Seattle Post Intelligence RSS link (pick one from their list)
   - BBC News Front Page World Edition
   - Google News - Health Section
   - Reader's Club New Review Feeds
   - Unshelved Library Cartoon Feed
   - National Weather Service
   
   
6. Create a blog post 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?
   

That, everyone, is the end of today's Discovery Exercise. And nice work - you've just tackled one of the (if not the) most difficult lessons in all of Learning 2.0...

3/16/07 Postscript - Google Reader

A number of you have asked about using Google Reader instead of Bloglines. Feel free - it's another good product and has the added benefit to tying in with the Google account you set up a few weeks ago for Blogger. The only negative is that we will not provide setup instructions - just don't have the time to write these up...

Google Reader is available at www.google.com/reader.

Up next - searching for feeds and discovering those with a library-theme...