RSS Icon
So… have you heard of RSS? Have you seen those small funny tags on websites? —->
Or maybe you’ve heard friends and co-workers talk about it, but still have no idea what RSS is. Well, don’t worry, because this week we’re going to learn all about RSS! In the information world, RSS is not only revolutionizing the way news, media and content creators share information, but it also is swiftly changing the way everyday users are consuming information.
RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication” and is a file format for delivering regularly updated information over the web.
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.
This week’s Discovery Exercises focus on learning about RSS news feeds and setting up a Bloglines account (a free online newsreader) for yourself to bring your feeds together.
Discovery Resources:
- Here’s a wonderful CommonCraft on RSS Feeds:
- Feed Me: A gentle introduction to Internet feeds – a good tutorial from Palinet, a library cooperative
- Using Bloglines Tutorial (how to keep up with dozens of blogs everyday) – This online tutorial walks you through how to setup a Bloglines account and add newsfeeds. Follow Steps 1 through 3 to set up your Bloglines account. Steps 4 through 9 are optional and cover how to subscribe to different types of feeds (podcasts, Flickr albums, etc.)
- Adding RSS Feeds to Bloglines – A short YouTube video from our own Helene Blowers that she created showing how to add feeds.
- Additional Bloglines news feed subcription information (screenshot image)
- Your co-workers – tap into their knowledge or work through your discovery process together! Several CML staff already use RSS feeds – seek them out and ask them to show what they know.
Discovery Exercise:
- Follow the discovery resources above to learn more about RSS and newsreaders.
- Create a free online Bloglines account for yourself and subscribe to at least 10 newsfeeds to your reader. See Using Bloglines Tutorial steps 1-3 for instructions. Newsfeeds:
- Learn & Play @CML participant blog feeds – Subscribe to several of your co-workers’ feeds. This is as easy as typing the blog URL into the subscribe field in Bloglines, or finding the RSS icon somewhere on their blog. Try it, it’s easy!
- Then try adding a few other types of news feeds from news sources and, hey, why not try subscribing to feeds in CML’s new catalog? Start with these 3 sites below and subscribe to their feeds:
- The Learn & Play @CML blog feed
- Dispatch.com news feeds (pick at least one)
- Unshelved – Library cartoon feed
- Create a post in your blog about this exercise. Optional: If you’re up to the challenge, you can provide the URL address to your public bloglines account (find where to find this below)
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?
How to find your public Bloglines URL:
- Click on the Share tab within your Bloglines account:
- Scroll down the right screen pane and locate the public URL (see screenshot)
- Be sure to add this as part of your post to demonstrate your completion of this activity!
So, to wrap things up, here is the link to my public Bloglines account: http://www.bloglines.com/public/mookitty
Why have a public account? To share blog rolls with others, of course! 
P.S.: Once you tackle this discovery exercise, you’ve conquered the most difficult one of the whole 23! Whew!
So, on the Tracking Log, can we can enter either the permalink to our blog post about this exercise OR the URL to our public bloglines account?
[...] @ 6:17 pm Tags: Learn & Play, RSS, Week 4 Thing #8 is easier than it looks. Really. Just read Joy’s post on the Learn & Play blog carefully, and take a few minutes to go through the Discovery [...]
I missed a step somewhere in creating my blogroll html and obtaining a url to put in the assignment. When I put my in my initials like your example and hit on the ‘create html’, it asked me to put this long phrase in my java blog template, or something weird like that. What’s what?
Hi, Julie,
Just enter the URL for your post about Thing #8, but if you’re doing the “Optional” part then, in your blog post about this exercise, include the URL for your public blogroll account. If you look at step 3 under the part about how to find your public blogroll account, it says, “Be sure to add this as part of your post to demonstrate your completion of this activity,” so just add the URL somewhere in your post.
I hope this helps!
Hi, Carol,
Did you get to at least create your Bloglines account? If so, just go back in under “Account,” and then “Blog Settings,” and then make sure it’s set to “Yes, publish my Blogroll.” Look over to the right of this option and you’ll see the URL. And, the URL for this is pretty consistent. So yours will be something like: http://www.bloglines.com/public/Carol’s user name
Does that help? If you’re still having problems, email me and we’ll work through it together.
I am not finding a ‘Share’ tab in my Bloglines account. Help!
Just wanted to throw out My Yahoo as a tried and true RSS Aggregator. I still use it and it works like a charm.
I ran accross an RSS widget created called RSSFeedReader.com that allows you to put any RSS url into it and it creates code to add to any web based blog, site, etc.
There isn’t a “Share” tab on my Bloglines page. All I have are the “Forums” and “Search” tabs.
Interesting post about Bloglines:
http://philbradley.typepad.com/phil_bradleys_weblog/2008/09/%CE%B2loglines-continues-to-decline.html
Bethany- Do you still need help finding “Share”? On the same side as, “Forums” and “Search” tabs, go all the way to the bottom of the page where it says “Publish, Share & Save”
You will click on the link that says “Share your blogroll”
It will take you to a page where it says
“Blogrolls”
There will be a line to type in that has “Your user name” in front of it. Type in your user name then click on “Generate HTML”
That may have been more information than you needed but I thought I would put all of it down in case you or anyone else needs it.
[...] #8 of the 23 Things was learning about RSS Feeds and opening an account in Bloglines. Which I did, but I have to agree with the many people who posted about Bloglines, that it, uh, sucks. Didn’t like the interface at all — it was clunky and lacked clarity. so I’ve abandoned it & haven’t been back, content (at the time) to use my google homepage to monitor feeds. [...]
Here’s an interesting SlideShare from the Westerville Public Library about RSS feeds.
http://www.slideshare.net/westervillelibrary/rss-101-presentation