managing online resources: “rss” is the key

UMT Ed Tech Conference 2008: Managing Online Sources "Creating Your Own Circle of the Wise“ Part II: Joanne Riley

Managing Online Resources: “RSS” is the key

Real Simple Syndication?

Rich Site Summary?

Ready for Some Stories?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0klgLsSxGsUFrom “Common Craft”


Subscribe to interesting and useful content

Find Good Content:News, scholarly databases, reviews, essays, new books, blogs, latest research…

Find stuff Subscribe Enjoy

Content updates are automatically sent to your Aggregator (e.g. “Google Reader”)


Two Things To Learn to Gain Control

1. Set up a free account with an online “aggregator” to harvest information you want

2. Learn how to “subscribe” to your favorite info sources


1. Set up a “Google Reader” account

1. Go to reader.google.com

2. Click “Create an Account”

3. Fill in the account form

4. Be sure to give an accessible e-mail address

5. Check your e-mail for confirmation message

6. Once your account is verified, you will be returned to ‘reader.google.com’


Once your account is verified, return to Google Reader


2. Add Subscriptions to Google Reader

1. Avoid Google’s pre-bundled “subscriptions”

2. Scholars will want to identify good subscriptions for themselves, through peer-reviewed sources, or from their Circle of the Wise!

How? Read on!


Adding subscriptions via Customized News Feeds

1. Go to a news site, (News.google.com, news.yahoo.com…)

2. Create a search that yields results that are useful to you

Sample search: “University of Massachusetts Boston”

3. “Subscribe” to the results by clicking on the RSS link

4. New items for that search will appear in your aggregator after you subscribe


Clicking on “RSS” brings you here

Click on “Add to Google Reader” to complete the subscription


Subscription Success!Google Reader displays your news feed in List View

Current results for “University of Massachusetts Boston” searchin List View


Same results in Expanded View

Here, Google Reader displays the same news feed in Expanded View


1. Try Academic Search Premiere at www.lib.umb.edu/databases/

2. Form a search that returns useful results

Another feed source: Scholarly Journals


1. “Subscribe” to the results via the “RSS” button

2. New items for this search will appear in your aggregator once you’ve subscribed

Academic Search Premiere Results


Every RSS subscription has its own peculiarities…

Click the RSS link for the next step in subscribing to the Academic Search Premiere results set


Academic Search Premiere – next step:

Clicking on “Add to Google Reader” will finish the process of subscribing to the ASP search results


Current results for “renaissance + ferrara + madrigal, fulltext, academic journals only”in Expanded View

These results will be updated automatically if anything new is added to Academic Search Premiere that matches the search terms

Subscription Success!ASP Results in Google Reader: Expanded View


Unfriendly Feed Name?

Click on “Feed Settings” and choose “Rename subscription”

Feeds can be renamed


Friendlier Title


Use your usual, tried-and-true strategies for locating trustworthy content.

Let those sources lead you to others.

Keep your eye out for “RSS” symbols and buttons

Once you’ve found a useful, trustworthy source, SUBSCRIBE to stay up-to-date

Finding Trustworthy Feeds


Whenever you locate atrusted source –

look around for the RSS

subscription symbol in one of its many guises:

Then SUBSCRIBE!

AH, Had I BUT Google Reader..!

“He that increaseth knowledge, increaseth anxiety.” Francis Bacon, The New Atlantis, 1605

managing online resources: “rss” is the key

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