RSS, Blogs & Resource Discovery

HALL Meeting, 11 Jan 2006Steven C. Perkins, J.D., M.L.L.

Coordinator of Reference Services

University of Houston LibrariesSPerkins@UH.Edu

The Evolution of Web Pages Before there was a World Wide Web there was

Dr Ted Nelson and XANADU®, http://xanadu.com/

The first browser, WorldWideWeb, created editable web pages, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WorldWideWeb

Later web browsers did not allow you to interactively edit the web pages on the server.

Static web pages ruled the WWW until . . .

The Introduction of the Wiki In 1995, Ward Cunningham established the first

Wiki, at the Portland Pattern Repository, and interactive web page editing was back in the WWW, http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WikiHistory

29 Dec 1997 saw the first use of WebLog on the RobotWisdom website, http://www.robotwisdom.com/log1997m12.html

Originally hand-coded, blogs were quickly automated, and are now mostly maintained through a browser-based application

What is a Blog? A Blog is a Web Log, an interactive web page

that allows readers to post comments on the items posted to the blog.

See, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog for a detailed explanation.

Blogs can be used with RSS feeds to keep your readers notified of important information.

Many organizations use blogs to ensure that everyone receives information in a timely manner.

Questions to ask before starting a Blog What are you using it for?

Alerts Updates Discussion Who will manage How many editors Public or Private

Types of Blogs Audio blogs, includes PodCasting,

http://www.Audioblog.com/, http://www.Podshow.com/ Videoblogs, http://www.videoblog.com/ Moblogs for mobile phones,

http://go.blogger.com/mobile-start.g PhotoBlogs like Flickr, http://www.flickr.com/ Klogs, Dashlogs, and Linklogs can be used to

point users to information sources

Blog Directories Bloglines is a blog aggregator where you can

search for blogs on the subject of your choice, http://www.bloglines.com/

Law Professor Blogs links to legal blogs, “blawgs” by law professors, http://www.lawprofessorblogs.com/

Library weblogs can be found at http://www.libdex.com/weblogs.html

Some Law Blogs: LLRX, http://www.llrx.com/ Legal Periodicals from W&L,

http://bloggery.wlu.edu/lawrevs/ Law Library Technology, http://www.lawlibtech.com/ BeSpacific, http://www.bespacific.com/ Lawrence Lessig, http://www.lessig.org/blog/ The Becker – Posner Blog,

http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/archives/2005/08/the_ten_command.html

Problems with Blogs Most blogs are abandoned after being started.

LiveJournal has nearly 8 million blogs but only 3 million are actively maintained.

Open blogs can be subjected to comment spam. Hosting a blog on your own server may be very

troublesome. Using an off-site host can also cause problems. You could get sued. See, the EFF: Legal Guide

for Bloggers, http://www.eff.org/bloggers/lg/

Problems (cont.): Legal problems include Intellectual Property,

Defamation, Privacy, Employment, http://www.eff.org/bloggers/lg/

Legal protection is Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode47/usc_sec_47_00000230----000-.html

Bloggers reporting the news and those reporting on public records have some protections beyond Sec. 230, http://www.eff.org/bloggers/lg/

Who is Using Blogs in AALL? The AALL Annual Meeting,

http://weblog.law.ttu.edu/aallamo/ The CS-SIS, http://cssisblawgs.blogspot.com/ Law Libraries,

http://cssisblawgs.bloki.com/index.jsp?name=blogs&folderId=93662

BLOG Resources: Blogging and RSSing the Librarian Way,

http://www.sla.org/Presentations/05Toronto/DITBloggingRSSingtheLibrarianWayTrends.ppt

All About Blawgs, by Robert Ambrogi, http://www.abll.org/pdf/ambrogi.ppt

Blog Software Breakdown, http://www.asymptomatic.net/blogbreakdown.htm

Blogger Tour, http://www.blogger.com/tour_start.g Blogging: Reading and Creating Blogs,

http://www.law.emory.edu/cms/site/uploads/media/blogging_notes.pdf

Blog Software Three of the main software tools used for

blogging are: Blogger, TypePad, and Movable Type

Blogger is owned by Google, http://www.blogger.com/

Six Apart, owns TypePad, MovableType, and LiveJournal, http://www.sixapart.com/

Radio UserLand is another widely used blogging tool, http://radio.userland.com/

RSS:

RSS has several meanings

There are different versions of RSS

Most Blogs have the capability of automatically generating RSS feeds

Who is Using RSS for Law?

The Federal and State Governments Law Firms AALL Law Schools and Law Libraries Individual Lawyers and Librarians Everyone else you know

Federal and State governments: FirstGov:

http://www.firstgov.gov/Topics/Reference_Shelf/Libraries/Podcast_RSS.shtml

GPO:http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/fdlp/index.html

Utah State Courts, Appellatte Court Opinions, http://www.utcourts.gov/

Louisiana Supreme Court Opinions, http://www.lasc.org/

RSS and Law Firms Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr Clark Wilson LLP Stark & Stark

AALL: AALL TS-SIS, http://

www.aallnet.org/sis/tssis/index.htm

Law Schools and Law Libraries: Washington & Lee Law Journals Feeds for tocs:

http://law.wlu.edu/library/feeds/ RSS at Harvard Law,

http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/directory/5

What an RSS feed looks like:

<?xml version="1.0"?><rss version="2.0"><channel>

<title>The Channel Title Goes Here</title><description>The explanation of how the items are related goes here</description><link>http://www.directoryoflinksgohere</link>

<item><title>The Title Goes Here</title><description>The description goes here</description><link>http://www.linkgoeshere.com</link></item>

<item><title>Another Title Goes Here</title><description>Another description goes here</description><link>http://www.anotherlinkgoeshere.com</link></item>

</channel></rss>

Creating RSS Feeds: Code it by hand: write, save, validate, announce

Add it to a Blog page, supported by Blogger, Typepad, etc.

Serving an RSS feed: Use your own RSS server, Slashcode and

Slashalikes, http://www.skybuilders.com/Users/Derek/research/slashalikes.html

Use your Blog, most Blog software supports RSS feeds

Register your feed with a service, Feedburner, www.feedburner.com/, Technorati, http://www.technorati.com/ping/

Validating an RSS Feed: Userland validator, http://rss.scripting.com/

Feed Validator for Atom and RSS Feeds, http://feedvalidator.org/

Finding RSS Feeds: RSS News Feeds for Law,

http://www.virtualchase.com/resources/rss_law.html

Bloglines, www.bloglines.com/ Technorati, www.technorati.com/ My Yahoo and Google Homepage or Google

Reader

Reading RSS Feeds: Some web browsers can read RSS feeds: FireFox, Safari,

Opera sage.moxdev.org/ Live Bookmarks, http://

www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/live-bookmarks Use Mozilla Thunderbird email client,

www.mozilla.com/thunderbird/ Many people use separate RSS readers to manage their

RSS feeds: FeedReader, and BlogLines http://www.feedreader.com/ http://www.bloglines.com/ Google Reader reads RSS http://www.google.com/reader/things/intro

More RSS Readers: Jeremy Wagstaff's list,

http://loosewire.typepad.com/blog/2004/08/a_directory_of_.html

Lockergnome list, http://channels.lockergnome.com/rss/resources/articles/quickstart.phtml

RSS Resources: RSS for Content Publishers and Webmasters,

http://www.mnot.net/rss/tutorial/

RSS Resources from MALL, http://www.aallnet.org/chapter/mall/inet_rss.htm

RSS Specifications, everything you need to know about RSS, http://www.rss-specifications.com/rss-specifications.htm

Thanks for your attention and time Steven C. Perkins, JD, MLL Coordinator of Reference

Services University of Houston M.D.

Anderson Library 713-743-9775 SPerkins@UH.Edu