Blogs and RSS Feeds Course

21 June 2007

London Health Libraries

Objectives

• Learnt how to set up a blog and create an RSS feed

• Be able to subscribe to RSS feeds and generate them from search resources

• Be aware of the different RSS readers and aggregators

Blogs/ Weblogs• An electronic journal/diary organised by date where you can add

information easily

• Blogs tends to be a single webpage containing text and images, and increasingly now audio and video content

• Netscape What News is thought to be the first example of a weblog, and the word itself was coined by Jorn Barger, the owner of the Robot Wisdom weblog (http://www.robotwisdom.com/)

• Blog is short for weblog. A Blogger is the person producing the blog. Blogging is when you create the blog by posting an entry

• American librarian, Jenny Levine, began the first “library” blog in 1995. It was called Librarian’s Site Du Jour and she reviewed reference websites

Examples of Blogs in Libraries

• Royal Free Hospital Library Bloghttp://rfhlibrary.blogspot.com

• Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust Library Serviceshttp://sathlibraries.blogspot.com

• John Gale, Bethlem Library - Mental Health Update Blog http://mentalhealthupdate.blogspot.com/

• Fade the Blog – Health News from North West, including podcasthttp://www.fadetheblog2.blogspot.com/

• Chemistry Info @ Imperial College Library Londonhttp://libinfo.wordpress.com/

• Cambridge University Library Medical Library http://cambridgemedicallibrary.blogspot.com/

• DrugData Updatehttp://drugscope.blogspot.com

Blogging Software:Web-based

Web-based Free Blogging Software

• Blogger - www.blogger.com (text editor, customisation, rss feed available)

• Bloglines - www.bloglines.com (rss feed available)

• LiveJournal - www.livejournal.com (customisation, rss feed)

• WordPress - http://wordpress.com/ (needs email activation, customisation, rss available)

• Xanga - www.xanga.com (text editor, customisation, subscription service available)

Also:

MS Windows Live Spaces - www.spaces.live.com

Yahoo 360 – www.360.yahoo.com

National Library for HealthLibrary News Alert

The Health and Libraries & Information Services Directory have launched a blog and RSS tool. Further

information can be found in May’s NLH Newsletter. http://nlhcms.library.nhs.uk/nlhdocs/Newsletter_May_2007.pdf

Blogger.comwww.blogger.com

• Create a Google account on blogger.com• Create a blog on blogger.com for your library,

applying a template design• Post some entries:

– Latest journal issues– New book stock– Advertising a library closure– Promote a training event

• Apply some advanced features, such as adding a blog archive

RSS feeds – what are they?

• Provides updates on new web content such as news headlines, blog entries, eTOCs. Also new audio content and images can be embedded in a RSS feed, eg podcasts

• Need an RSS reader or aggregator to read them

• Written in XML format and are open source

• Several versions, including Really Simple Syndication, Rich Site Summary, RDF Site Summary and ATOM

Why use RSS feeds?

• Save time, as only need to access one RSS reader or aggregator

• Unclutter your email inbox from email alerts

• Disseminate information about your library

• Create RSS feeds on specific topics

Health Care Libraries NewsfeedOxford University Libraries

http://www.ouls.ox.ac.uk/hcl

Subscribing to an RSS feed

• The following icon means that a RSS feed is available on a website:

For example, on the BBC Health News website

To subscribe to a RSS feed

• Click on the orange icon and following webpage appears

There are several ways to subscribe to the RSS feed. For example cut and paste the RSS URL into your reader/aggregator

RSS Readers/ Aggregators

RSS Feeds can be read in:

• Web-based aggregators – need a username and password, but can be read on any PC

• Desk-top readers – software installed on PC and feeds download when connected to the internet

• Web browser – feeds can be read in a web browser

• Personalised start pages

Web-based Aggregators

• Bloglines

(www.bloglines.com)

• NewsGator

(www.newsgator.com)

Google Reader

(www.google.com/reader)

Desktop Readers

• FeedReader(www.feedreader.com)

Web Browsers

• Firefox and Internet Explorer 7 will store and display RSS feeds

Personalised Page Starters

www.pageflakes.com www.netvibes.com

Also National Library for HealthMyLibrary

(http://www.library.nhs.uk/mylibrary/)

NLH My Library displays RSS feeds and can

be accessed using Athens username and password

• Can also send My Update to email address

RSS Feeds

• BBC News, including podcasts. Can subscribe to topics, eg Health News, Technology News

• Online newspapers, including podcasts. Eg The Guardian, The Times, The Daily Telegraph

• BMJ – Current issue, recent issues, online first• eTOCs from journals suppliers – Blackwells, Emerald• Podcasts – The Lancet, NEJM, New Scientist, Nature• National Library for Health, including Document of the

Week, Hitting the Headlines, What’s New• NICE Guidelines

Generating RSS Feeds It is possible to generate RSS feeds on specific topics, using:

• News» Google News (http://news.google.com/)» Yahoo News (http://uk.yahoo.com/)

• Blogs» Ask (http://www.ask.com)» Sphere (http://www.sphere.com/)» Feedster (http://www.feedster.com/)» Technorati (http://technorati.com/)

• Medical» PubMed» MedWorm (http://www.medworm.com)

• Dialog Datastar Searches

Mixing and Filtering RSS feeds

• Mixing RSS feeds from a several sources. Services from Yahoo Pipes, My Syndicaat and Feedblendr can do this

• Filtering RSS feeds means you can remove duplicate entries and block such fields as keywords. Feedrinse provides this service

Use RSS Feed from Blog Example Blogger.com

• Set up blog & post entries

• Subscribe to blog through RSS Reader

RSS Feeds

• Use Google username and password to open Google Reader

• Subscribe to some BBC feeds from their website

• Set up a PubMed RSS feed on a specific topic

• Create a Dialog Datastar search feed• Try a Google News/Yahoo News RSS feed