We all have busy, busy lives. Sometimes its hard to keep up to date with current news and events, posts on your favourite blog or website, and bits of information that maybe useful to you sometime in the future. Those who know me, know that I have this obsession with technology…but the thing about technology is that it changes so rapidly…so how do I “stay in the know” about what’s going on in the world (and seem smarter than I really am)? Â I use a RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed aggregator. My one stop shop for everything I care to know about that gets posted on the Internet.
My idea for this Tips email is not to talk about RSS Feed Readers per se…but to give you some ideas of what you could use one for. I personally love Google Reader because I don’t have to create another account to access my feeds and its easy to use. Â But you can key in “best RSS” or “best RSS Reader” in Google Search and browse for others. Alternatively, on your mobile device, go to your App Store and search for “RSS”. I’m sure you will have a wide selection of apps to choose from.
On any website you go to look for the below icon or look for the letters “RSS” somewhere on the page or even in the footer. You can click on this RSS link, then copy the web address of the page you are directed to or the RSS link that is noted and subscribe to the feed in your reader.
Examples of feeds I have subscribed to and why:
- Facebook Pages such as SLIS Social at the University of Alberta and Banana Republic to stay up to date with event announcements. (Hint: Look for the “Get Updates via RSS” link on any Facebook Page.)  feed://www.facebook.com/feeds/page.php?id=202217855995&format=rss20
- A plethora of favourite author and blogging websites to keep up to date about books, book reviews and issues in bloglandia.
- LIS Blogs such as iLibrarian and Library Journal RSS Feeds on new book releases. http://www.libraryjournal.com/csp/cms/sites/LJ/info/rss.csp
- News feeds from content providers such as Huffington Post, Entertainment Weekly, Gizmodo, Lifehacker and Mashable, etc.
- The FLA Jobline blog to keep up to date with LIS jobs in Western Canada. http://jobline.fla.org/
- I subscribed to ~25 Cataloging blogs when I was taking LIS 532 Cataloging & Classification to gain a better understanding of this area of study and tosupport individual and group assignments.
- NPR (National Public Radio) for current events and book reviews. http://www.npr.org/rss/
- Conference proceedings.
- Study Hacks for study tips when I was in my first year of the MLIS program. http://calnewport.com/blog/
I try to keep up with posts but sometimes I skip reading them (e.g. if I go on vacation) using a Mark All As Read feature. There may be a feature where you can Staryour favourites to read at a later date. Also, being organizationally obsessed, I tag and organize posts I want to keep for future use into folders.
I hope you try out a RSS feed reader. Its a tool that can be used to simplify your life but beware of subscribing to too many feeds!
infophile 