Introduction to RSS feeds prepared for librarians

3. There are probably a number of web sites or blogs you read on a regular basis. One way to read them is to visit each web page separately and scroll through its content

4. RSS feeds make it possible to see the content of them all together in a simpler format

8. How do you know if a web site you visit regularly has an RSS feed? This symbol is one common indicator

9. Sometimes you need to look carefully for an indicator of a feed. … and when this link is clicked, a user sees feed choices on a separate page On this site, you have to scroll all the way to the bottom of the page…

10. Here are the feeds offered by CNN

11. Blogs will often omit the orange icon but include links that say “Subscribe”

12. On Picasa.web’s photo sharing site, the feed is very hard to see…but it’s available!

13. Subscribe RSS Other ways RSS feeds may appear XML icon With logos of feed readers

16. The Seattle Public Library offers RSS feeds for individual search results. Clicking this link gives a user updates any time a book on Jewish mythology is added to the catalog

20. Where do I find an aggregator? One web directory, The Open Directory Project, lists 79 feed readers still available for Windows

22. RSS feeds are created with XML, a markup language older browsers do not display properly. This was not always the case! The “XML” at the beginning of this page indicates that you have clicked an RSS feed which your browser is not interpreting properly

23. This is a properly displayed feed in Apple’s Safari browser

24. Here is an RSS feed displayed in Internet Explorer 7

25. Managing feeds in your browser is similar to using bookmarks or favorites . In IE7, feed titles are displayed on a tab on the left, next to Favorites When a title is clicked, the content of the feed is displayed on the right

26. Managing feeds in your browser is similar to using bookmarks or favorites . In Firefox, feed titles appear on your Bookmarks Bar. Clicking the title reveals a dropdown list where you choose a headline to view

27. RSS in E-mail Clients Microsoft Outlook 2007, Apple Mail, and Mozilla Thunderbird all have sections for viewing RSS feeds.

28. RSS in E-mail Clients In Outlook 2007, The names of your feeds appear beneath your regular e-mail Inbox

29. RSS in E-mail Clients Apple Mail is similar, with a section for RSS feeds underneath your mailboxes Clicking the feed name on the left displays the headlines from the feed in the top viewing pane

30. RSS in E-mail Clients Clicking a headline from the top pane displays its contents in the bottom pane

33. If you have customized your start page for web-based e-mail, then you are probably already using RSS feeds Feeds added to Yahoo’s start page

34. Many of the gadgets Google allows users to add to customized home pages take advantage of RSS. These are all RSS feeds.

35. When the + sign is clicked, the feed’s content is displayed without leaving the iGoogle home page.

36. Pageflakes Here is a Pageflakes.com customized home page including tools like a calculator, to-do list, and Google search box

37. Pageflakes RSS feeds appear along with the customized tools on this page.

40. Bloglines is one popular web-based feed reader Feed titles appear on the left side of the page Here are the headlines for each feed

41. Clicking an individual headline displays the content of the article

42. Here are Google Reader’s feed titles Headlines of the selected feed appear here Users select whether to view feeds in the compact “list view” format…

43. … or view more of the article in “expanded view”