Jason Puckett of Geogria State University Library (http://library.gsu.edu) explains it well:
RSS is a web feature allowing you to get current updates from your favorite websites. You don’t have to individually check each site you like to follow: just set up an RSS reader and updates will appear there automatically. You can also use RSS to notify you of new search results in many library databases.
It’s like creating your own custom newspaper with content from all over the web: headlines from CNN and GSU’s news, a comics page you pick out yourself, music reviews from Rolling Stone and sports from Bob’s Baseball Blog. (You can even turn it into a “real” newspaper if you want, with tools like Feedjournal.)
This video by Common Craft does an excellent job of summarizing how RSS works:
| Follow these three steps: 1. Set up a free account on Bloglines or Google Reader. 2. Look for sites featuring RSS icons like these (usually in orange). The URL for new content is called the site’s “feed.” Paste the site’s feed URL into your reader.3. Go to your reader page and read your feeds!Click the “Set Up” and “Subscribe” tabs at the top of this guide for more info. |
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