RSS

There's lots of information on the Web and it's become increasingly difficult to stay current with what's happening in the library world let alone our other interests.

One way to avoid having to visit all of your favorite sites looking for updates is to have Really Simple Syndication (RSS) do it for you.

RSS announces to you that new articles are available from Web sites and blogs via something called an aggregator. You tell the aggregator -- or "news reader" as it's sometimes called -- which Web sites and blogs you're interested in (and, of course, the sites have to provide RSS feeds -- not all sites do), and the aggregator lets you know whenever anything new is published to those sites.

A commonly used aggregator is available for free from Bloglines at http://www.bloglines.com.

Adding a Web site to your aggregator involves telling the aggregator the Web address of the site you're interested in. The address you need usually ends in either .rss or .xml. For example, the address of our Information File feed is http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/library/information/information.xml. The address can often be found by clicking on an RSS or xml graphic. Usually, these graphics or even text links are found on the sides or bottom of the Web page.

Bloglines has an "Add" feature for including a Web site in your aggregator. The address, for example, http://www.example.com/news.xml, should be copied from your browser's address bar and pasted into your aggregator's "Add" text box. Complete the process by clicking on the "Subscribe" button. The aggregator will then notify you when new additions are made to the site.

Some blogs automatically pass the address to your aggregator when you click on the icon, or you choose your aggregator from a list of aggregators. Aggregators are getting smarter all the time and now it's possible to paste a Web site homepage address into the "Add" box, for example, http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/library, and the aggregator finds the .rss or .xml files itself.

Some of the more well known aggregators include:

Bloglines, MyYahoo, MyMSN, MyAOL, MyGoogle

The Fairfax County Public Library's began using RSS feeds in 2005 and now include: events, news releases, Information File, podcasts, blogs for all customers and a blog for teens.

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