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Week 5: RSS Ready, Set, More Q than A....
While I believe RSS feeds are an excellent resource for libraries in general, I am interested in how RSS feeds will be utilized on a wide spread scale and the possible parameters set around their use in the future.
Using RSS feeds as a means of automatically updating library websites is a fantastic time saving resource when staff members are too busy to keep the site current. Also, feeds allow links to relevant news, articles, online journals, books or video reviews, etc.
However, even though RSS feeds can replace/enhance various content on a library site, I believe it is still important to remain cognizant of what feeds the library is offering and the relevance of each. RSS feeds should not become a replacement for online text.
They should be subject to the same retention and disposition schedules as online content. I think regular housekeeping or a predetermined number of possible RSS feeds may prevent a library site from being inundated with an infinite number.
As far as utilizing RSS feeds to capture patron interest, pulling online content from database resources (as the Seattle library site does), to showcase particular material to a ‘community' of users is a great way of re-introducing old content, or providing access to new.
As far as using RSS feeds as websiet content, I would be interested to see if there are any ongoing debates surrounding what feeds are appropriate and if there are any issues of determing 'inappropriate' third and fourth party links that may be accessed from primary RSS pages. For examlple, If a staff member could link to a site that was offensive off the main page the feed is attached to, would it still be allowed?
In this way, I'm curious to see if there will be similar problems/debates around RSS feeds as there is with collection development policies?
What are the future parameters around the utilization of RSS fed sites?
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Hey Jane:
I definitely agree with you that RSS feeds (or blogs or whatever technology) should never entirely place the "old" ways of doing things. It is still of vital importance that traditional and proven ways of doing things are kept around, if not for our own sake then for those patrons who may not be interested in using the Internet (let alone blogs or RSS) to get their information. As I mentioned during my first week, I am decidedly anti-"race for the finish line" about Web- and Library 2.0.
Your idea about 3rd or 4th party inappropriate is also really insightful. Sometimes in my own web-savvy and Libertarian mindset, I forget that librarians must be at least somewhat cognizant of what they're putting out there and who might access it. Great point!
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Hi Jane,
I definitely also agree with your comments about RSS this week, especially that of applying some form of rigor around the 'collection' element of RSS subscriptions by making sure someone is in charge of maintaining/reviewing not only the subscribed feed links, but also syndicated content (as in the case of applying something like feed2js to a webpage).
Also, interesting point about the 'appropriate' factor of things linked to via library websites. Though I agree it is important to keep in mind, I would also point out that 'inappropriate' can be very subjective and I imagine librarians will receive complaints no matter how 'safe' or 'risque' the content, depending on who's looking at it. Nevertheless, I do agree that librarians can certainly avoid some conflict through careful selection practices.
I was particularly interested in your comment about how sites could easily become inundated with too much information. People are often complaining about an information overload, and their constant need to be always connected.
Then again, having a large number of RSS feeds to choose from allow users to really customize what news they are getting. For example, I subcribe to a few feeds from the New York Times, but I know if they hadn't broken down their entire website into a few feeds I would be overwhelmed with the amount of new posts I would have to go through (trust me, I only subscribe to THREE Times feeds and I get on average 50 new items a day from them!). So a large number of availble feeds may seem daunting to some users, but taking the time to carefully select them will save users time in the future.
I wonder if RSS is as controversial now as it once might have been. I worked in a library that just removed 90% of the websites that had been catalogued, becuase they were considered of little relevant use to the patrons, especially as web habits have changed so much in the past few years. It makes me consider using RSS in a library ONLY if it was the most appropriate tool (or in conjunction with other applications). I see the value in RSS from subscribed databases, but am not sure how widely RSS from external sites would be included in a library's RSS feeds.