Using RSS: An Explanation and Guide

"I wrote a little piece on RSS for Information Outlook Magazine, the trade journal for The Special Libraries Association. The table of contents is available from the site." [Library Stuff]

Have your local librarian order a copy for you. I know I will! Congrats, Steven!

And speaking of RSS and Steven Cohen... we got the preliminary program for the Computers in Libraries conference in DC in March, 2003. My name is in there with Mr. Cohen for a program on RSS, so circle that one on your calendar now if you're attending the show. During our brief 45-minute presentation, I hope to demonstrate the grant software SLS is having written since it features individual and group news aggregation. Here's the description of our program:

"Rich Site Summary (RSS) is a form of XML that is used to syndicate content from thousands of Web sites into an aggregated news feed. RSS feeds have begun to attract the attention of those in the fields of content delivery and management. Content from numerous sites can be delivered to one place (an aggregator), saving the precious time of visiting these sites frequently throughout the day. This session covers how to get started in the world of RSS feeds, including a review of the major players in the field, resources to help locate feeds, and what the future will hold for RSS—plus practical advice on how to utilize feeds."

There are lots of other interestingly-titled programs in the guide, starting with Wednesday's Keynote speech by Michael Schuyler titled "Library as Implant: Librarian as Cyborg." Here's the description of his talk:

"The future will be more futuristic than you ever thought possible. Librarians seem to feel that the future will be a little more automated, a little more wireless, and a little more online, perhaps, but otherwise libraries will provide the same kinds of service they do today and become community centers as well. The problem is, this view is too introverted. It fails to place the library in the context of the future, which may turn out very differently than we understand today. Futurists are predicting that 10 years out, we may be right, but 20 years out, we may see a future that is so vastly different, we cannot imagine what it will look like. If you think of technological progress as a gently rising curve, the only way you’ll find the future is by looking straight up. The future library may very well be an implant; the future librarian may not be a Homo sapiens."

And if I play my cards right, it looks like I'll get to see Peter Morville and Gary Price again and meet Pat Delaney and Tim Bray. I'm looking forward to this one already.

For those of us that couldn't make it to the LITA National Forum back in October, Rick Roche has written a summary in the current SLS Points of Reference newsletter. He attended sessions about the notebook computer checkout program at Cook Library in Mississippi, eBooks in academia, what sounds like a great session with Carrie Russell (Copyright Specialist for the American Library Association’s Office for Information Technology Policy), digital reference, XML for cross-database searching, and multimedia for instructional applications.