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RSS Explained

This page offers an overview of RSS, how to use it, SLIS RSS details, and more.

png image of RSS feed icon RSS Overview

What does the orange radio signal icon mean? Perhaps you regularly visit Dr. Linda Main's Slis21 blog, and don't want to miss a posting? RSS can help.

The simplest analogy for understanding RSS is that it lets you subscribe to an Internet source of information like you subscribe to a newspaper or magazine. When the latest issue of a magazine is published, you could go to a local store to buy it, or you could save time and money by having it delivered in the mail. RSS is akin to subscribing to the magazine rather than going to the store. You no longer have to visit a site every day to get all the latest content. Blog posts come at irregular intervals: some days there are more than one, other days there are none. Rather than check every day, RSS does it for you.

RSS will tell you when you have new content from:

  • Blogs
  • Podcasts
  • News Feeds
  • Digital content services for items such as recent videos or photos
  • Updates to listings, like the LIBR 294 Internship new listings feed

Which RSS subscription type to use?

How you subscribe to an RSS feed depends on your personal preferences. An "RSS Aggregator" manages all of your RSS feeds in one convenient place. Do you want to: view multiple feeds with an application running on your computer, or view multiple feeds on a website which collects your feeds, or directly view individual feeds with your web browser? [Note: Google Reader will be discontinued on July 1st, 2013.]

  • A full list of software applications (including many email clients which can read RSS feeds) is at Comparison of feed aggregators.
  • You could visit an RSS feed aggregating website to see the latest postings from your subscriptions. More are listed at Comparison of feed aggregators.
  • Browser-based: Firefox (PC or Mac), Internet Explorer 8 (PC), or Safari (Mac) can view individual RSS feeds directly.

Tutorials: How to Get RSS

The links listed below give step by step instructions for subscribing to RSS feeds:

SJSU SLIS Blogs And Podcasts

See a list of SLIS feeds and Blogs at Social Web & RSS Feeds. See details about SLIS blogs and podcasts at Overview of SLIS Blogs. For SLIS students, the most important blog to subscribe to is Dr. Main's Slis21 blog.

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