RSS News Feeds

RSS feeds, sometimes called “newsfeeds” or just “feeds”, are a new and exciting way of getting your favorite content from the Web faster than ever.

RSS feeds are special links in webpages designed to automatically update with the latest information available on a website. Some examples of this could be the latest entry in a blog, new results in databases, or just general updates to a particluar website.

RSS feeds are designed to be read by special programs called “news aggregators.” As the name suggests, the purpose of these programs (normally downloaded to your computer) is to collect the latest updates from all of the newsfeeds to which you have subscribed. The aggregator program then organizes and displays the content in a way that is most helpful to you. In other words, you no longer have to visit each individual website to see if it has been updated. Rather, you can subscribe to the newsfeed of each website and then simply open the news aggregator program to read the latest information from each site, all in one place!

This technology is becoming especially prominent in the world of online databases, where it is beginning to complement or replace the older technology of e-mail alerts. Ellis library also offers a current news feed.

Selecting a news aggregator program is probably the most difficult part of beginning to use news feeds. Many programs are available for free download, and each program has different features which may or may not be useful to you. Some suggestions:

Download.com offers over 100 different news aggregator programs, many of which are free.

Google Reader is a web-based news aggregator program created by Google. It requires a free Google account.

Once you have downloaded, installed, set-up, and have read the directions for your particular program, why not test it by subscribing to an Ellis Library RSS Feed?