Week 4: RSS
February 13 - February 19, 2008
Learning Objectives
By the end of the week, you should:
1. Understand what RSS is and what can be done with it.
2. Identify uses of RSS in libraries.
3. Be able to manipulate RSS feeds and syndicate them on a website using JavaScript.
Lecture
Quicktime Movie (15 minutes)
Readings
Required
Farkas, Chapter 4
“7 Things You Should Know About RSS.” Educause.
Reichardt, R. "Success Story: RSS Moves into the Mainstream at the University of Alberta Libraries." Library Connect, 3.2.
Schroeder, S. “The RSS Cookbook – 10 Advanced RSS Tricks.” Frantic Industries.
Rothman, D. (2007). “RSS to Webpage Resources.”
Optional
Rethlefsen, M. (2007). "Using RSS to Add Currency to the Library Website." (Video)
This video offers useful instruction on how to do some of the activities you will need to do this week. Here is the website Melissa developed during the video.
Examples
1. Homer Township Public Library
2. Norwich University Library Databases for Military History page (note the syndicated blog content on the side of the page)
3. Do some searches in the Hennepin County Public Library Catalog and notice the RSS feed on the right-hand side of the page. Do a subject search for “cookery” and click on the RSS icon.
4. Seattle Public Library Reader's Corner (RSS feeds for every book list)
5. University of Alberta's New Books by Subject
Take a look at the slides from the RSS and JavaScript Cookbook presentation (check out all of the examples) and the listing of tools.
Things to Do
1. Explore the above examples.
2. Complete Exercise 2, due February 19.
3. Write at least one blog post on one (or more) of the following topics:
1. Why should libraries care about RSS?
2. How can you envision using some of the tools you used in Exercise 2 in a library environment?
3. Write your own reflections on what you learned this week.
4. Comment on at least two other people's blog posts.
5. Bookmark three additional resources about RSS and tag them libr246-13.
