Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Thing 7: RSS Feeds

RSS, or Real Simple Syndication, is the magic that allows a reader (such as the one you created in Thing 6) to work. It is a metadata scheme, similar to a MARC record, and it allows websites to publish new information.

Once again we’ll start with a Common Craft video:

You know that using RSS you can read updates from a variety of blogs. You can also read updates from wikis, library databases (i.e., resources from EBSCO, Gale, etc.), and other web 2.0 sites like Flickr and LibraryThing. You even create a feed when you click the share link (in Google Reader) on posts that you like. The bottom line: you don’t have to know how RSS feeds are formatted, or how they are transmitted—you just have to know how to find them and add them to your reader.

Here are some feeds that I like to keep up with—-add them to your Google Reader if you think they might be interesting:

Catalogablog: http://catalogablog.blogspot.com/

Cataloging Futures : http://www.catalogingfutures.com/catalogingfutures

Unshelved (Library Humor): http://www.unshelved.com/

Library of Congress: http://www.loc.gov/blog

Library & Information Science News: http://lisnews.org/

Library Bytes (Helene Bowers): http://www.librarybytes.com

Tame the Web (Michael Stephens): http://tametheweb.com/

Star Telegram:
http://www.star-telegram.com/189/index.rss

9 comments:

helene blowers said...

Thanks for the nod to my blog. It's exciting to see so many libraries in Texas doing the 23 Things program. It's amazing to see how the original has grown http://plcmclearning.blogspot.com)

Good luck to everyone doing this program

Helene Blowers

vkomarek said...

How do you add the reader to your blog, or can you do that so I don't have to sign into two, three different places, in order to view the accounts??

Vidya Krishnaswamy said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Vidya Krishnaswamy said...

vkomarek,
You cannot add the reader to the blog,but you can get some of the favorite RSS feeds to show on your blog.

1.Log into your Blogger.com account. Go to the dashboard. Select "Layout"
2.Click on "Add a Gadget." Another window will open with a list of Basic elements that you can add to your blog.
3.Select "Feed" element, which opens a "Configure Feed" dialog box.
4.Copy the RSS link URL from the external blog. Most blogs place their RSS link as either text or an RSS icon somewhere on their blog or at the end of the URL. Clicking on this link will open a web browser page with the feed URL, often a Feedburner.com address. Select this link and copy it to the clipboard.
5.Paste the RSS link URL into the "Feed URL" box of the Blogger "Configure Feed" dialog. Select "Continue." If you make a mistake, click "Cancel" and start again.
6.Save your changes. After clicking on "Continue," a dialog box will open showing the title of the blog feed you are publishing.
Or look at this web page for more detailed instructions
http://www.ehow.com/how_2331136_add-feed-blogger-sidebar.html

Judy Daniluk said...

Some more RSS feeds you might want to follow - http://librarianlive.libsyn.com/rss for the Librarian Live podcast, http://ntlptv.blip.tv/rss for videos from NTLP-TV, and http://feeds.feedburner.com/NorthTexasRegionalLibrarySystem for the NTRLS blog!

cary said...

Here is a link to a list of librarians' blogs from Salem Press http://salempress.com/Store/pages/blog.htm
Note--this is year or so old, some of the blogs have gone by the wayside, but most are still good.

Anonymous said...

Enjoyed the information. Would like to add the reader to my blogg.

Rejoyce said...

I am never sure whether I am supposed to put my post here or on my own blog, so I am posting on both:
Thing 7: Although I had trouble getting the Reader to function properly in all the areas, I saw what a great tool it could be. I added some feeds to my reader so that I could show my husband how it works. He is the one that consistently checks the same sites every day so I was excited to show him how he could save some time.

TCU Library said...

Rejoyce--
The requirement is to post on your own blog. You are also welcome to add comments to the main North Texas 23 blog, but it is not required.

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