The answer is yes, providing you’re reading this text via RSS.
In the move from Blogger to WordPress the old feed (www.travelinlibrarian.info/atom.xml) is now dead. The new/current feed (feeds.feedburner.com/TravelinLibrarian) has actually been working for years and I asked people to move to is quite a while ago. It looks like 400+ people hadn’t ever gotten the message.
The FeedBurner version is now the only legit version. Please tell your friends and thanks for your continued support.
I can’t remember the last time I actually searched for an RSS feed. Granted, I’m not the typical participant in this project but I look at it as a "you’ll be out here some day too" scenario. Once you’re hooked on RSS, you’ll notice it virtually everywhere. It’s hiding in search engines like Google News and PubMed. It’s attached to practically every blog and online newspaper in existence these days. And, if there isn’t a feed for the site you want to follow, you can use a service like Page2RSS to make a feed for you. Just keep your eyes open and the RSS will start to fall into your lap.
Image via OpenSource Vector Art
My thoughts on RSS. Well, I have written a book teaching others how do use it so I guess you could say I’m a fan. Seriously though, I’d say RSS has completely changed the way I receive information. Every time I get handed some monthly newsletter, wether print or electronic, I’ve pretty much already heard about everything the newsletter has printed. (Ok, not the ultra specific stuff but if it talks about larger issues or new tech, chances are I’ve already read about it.) Those that say there’s not enough time to read all that they could subscribe to, I have the following suggestion: For every few RSS feeds you subscribe to, drop something that isn’t RSS. Or, if you can, find the RSS version of something you read in print or via a specific Web site. (Your newspaper for example.) Quickly you’ll see that you’re spending the same amount of time yet receiving more information in that same amount of time.
I’ve got to admit that I don’t track my representative and senators as much as I should. This is about to change. I just found OpenCongress.org and so far I’m impressed. Create an account and it will find your rep and senators for you. From there you can add more, track legislation, get related news stories, leave comments and even vote yea/nay on individual bills. Oh, and you can subscribe to all of it via RSS! So, now whenever Rep Fortenberry, or Senators Hagel or Nelson do something, I’ll know about it.
You can also create blog widgets to track legislation. Here’s one on the recent FISA bill.
Feel free to add me as a friend. My username is msauers.
I’m a fan of Feed2JS and FeedDigest so I was skeptical that this one would be any different. Also, there are other tools that will make RSS-based tickers but those are mostly ad supported. This one is different in two ways.
First, it’s not directly ad supported. The resulting widget does display a Google logo but many libraries aren’t against that as opposed to more traditional ads for companies and/or services. (In this case, the Google logo is less an ad, more a credit for the service being used.)
Secondly, you don’t need to know the URL of the feed you’re sourcing. As shown in the screenshot below, I was able to pull in content from my blog, Tame the Web, and the NLC’s blog just by typing in their names. Google automatically did a search and found the feed URLs for me. How slick is that?
And here’s the result:
I’ll definitely be covering this tool in my RSS presentation at Internet Librarian this year.
Google AJAX Feed API – Dynamic Feed Control Wizard via RSS4LIB
I’m not sure I want to make a habit of this but I’ve received another request to blog on a particular topic. I’ve been meaning to write this post for a while so I’ll just look at this as the push that I needed to actually do it. 
So, for three conferences now I’ve created a Twitter RSS feed for those who are not at the conference to read the posts of those that are. The method or system isn’t perfect but I think I’ve got the major bugs worked out. So here’s how you do it.
That’s it. I hope I’ve explained it well enough for others to recreate what I’ve done for other events. Feel free to post requests for clarification in the comments below.
This week’s Things deal with RSS and Thing #8 has us signing up with Bloglines and subscribing to some feeds. Well, no problem for me there as I’ve already got an account which contains about 500 feeds. So, yep, I’m stuck for something to specifically blog about. Well, the thing’s built in questions have come to the rescue!
What do you like about RSS and newsreaders?
Simple, the fact that they make keeping up simple. If I had to actually bookmark all of these resources and check daily for what’s new, at best I’d go insane. With RSS, all I need to do is subscribe and all the information comes to me as soon as it can
How do you think you might be able to use this technology in your work or personal life?
My problem is that I use this all the time in both my work AND personal life so much so that sometimes it’s hard to differentiate between the two. If I read a feed about cool technology, is that for work or is that personal? The answer is "yes".
How can libraries use RSS or take advantage of this new technology?
Libraries can use RSS in two ways. First librarians can use it to keep up with news and the opinions of other librarians. The libraries themselves can use it as a great way to distribute information to their users.
And here’s the final bit, the slides for my RSS preconference @ Internet Librarian 2007.
1931 unread LIS feed items is just too much. So, I’ve marked all of them read with a single click. If I missed something important let me know. I’ll start reading again on Monday.
