Thoughts on RSS:
Before taking LIS9763, I had never signed up for an RSS feed before. I just never paid too much attention to the RSS icons that are so ubiquitous on the web because I just don’t spend a lot of time on-line and always preferred to just go to my favourite sites for news, etc. In setting up my aggregator through bloglines at the beginning of this course, I realized the immense potential of this technology – and what I’ve been missing!
There are a number of points that Robin Good brings up in The Future of RSS… that have made me think more about what this technology offers as I am basically completely new to it and still grasping the pros and cons of RSS. First and foremost, it is a great tool to decide what I want to be receiving electronically – it gives me control over what sources and what content will be sent to me. By giving me control of what reaches me this greatly reduce spam because my email address is not given out when I subscribe to an RSS. Good says that this will likely not be secure and impassable forever, but for now, it puts me in control of which content reaches me. One barrier to RSS (and Good comments on in the article) is terminology and a slight learning curve for the non-user. I always knew that the little orange icon plastered all over the internet was for RSS, but I never took it upon myself to actually learn about what RSS was or what it could do for me or how to set it up. I guess I kind of though it was frivolous and a non-essential application. I now realize that it’s a handy tool that speeds up and customizes the process of getting new material on the internet.
Case Studies — Public Libraries
1. The Kansas City Public Library website has a lot of categories which is nice to see. I think that makes it easier for the reader who is interested in particular genres will be able to subscribe to the feeds which interest them the most. If someone is only interested in Cooking, then they can choose specifically that feed. I am curious about how they chose these categories, some of them seem really broad and vague (Women for example ), but its good to have such a large variety available to choose from all in one place if you are looking to set up some RSS feeds.
2. Dublin City is really flashy and the site is very savvy. I like the look of it and the visual layout is really appealing. The RSS feeds are not all in one place, but rather incorporated into their main pages. News and Your Pleasure have some RSS feeds incorporated into them. I really was just looking for the RSS symbol when I was browsing those pages because they are so full of content and graphics. This is a site that I would probably spend a lot of time at if I was a patron at Dublin Public Library – there is so much information that goes beyond the books and resources of the library that it would keep me engaged to know that the library is THE source for my information needs.
Hello Katrina,
I also enjoy how the Kansas City Public Library, like many of the other case studies for this week, has a wide variety of RSS feeds to subscribe too. This has the potential to reach a wide variety of library users. I was especially interested in Kentucky University's Podcast feed. I think this is a really cool way to reach users who enjoy visuals over plain text. Overall, I was also impressed with the potential of RSS feeds.
Jen
Hi Katrina,
I was thinking about some additional pros/cons when I was reading your blog, and I wondered if the fact that RSS does in fact personalize the information we get could be a bit of a downside as well, in the sense that we are getting information that we choose instead of reading other viewpoints as well. But maybe we do that anyway in whichever way we surf online or choose the websites we visit.