Blogs and RSS

 

Blogs and RSS Readings for Blogs & RSS Why Blog instead of Email? Use Sage for Firefox / built-in for IE7 For IE 7: For Firefox 3.x: How to add a blog to your RSS When you can't use the RSS their way.... RSS Updated Some academic blogs Blog features Drafts

 

[version 2008.12.1.a]

 

What is a Blog?  It's a shorter, more popular term for "web log", which is essentially a quick and easy way to create a web page for people who don't necessarily want to bother with writing HTML and all that tech stuff.

Blogs are used for personal reasons, for business information, for putting information and opinions and other things out for access to a limited or unlimited web page.  Big companies use them.  Universities (even chancellors!) use them.  Schools use them.  Libraries use them.  Individuals use them. The reasons for using them are as varied as the types of users, at least.

 

Okay, then what's all this "RSS" business and what's it got to do with blogs?

 

Boring technical explanation of acronym "RSS":

Microsoft had proposed a Channel Definition Format (CDF) in 1997, and Netscape had proposed an RDF Site Summary (RSS) format in 1999—both of which are based on the adaptable XML format. Netscape renamed their format Rich Site Summary when they introduced it as RSS 0.91. Dave Winer of UserLand renamed RSS yet again to Really Simple Syndication when he introduced version 2.0. [Source: Find the Right RSS Reader for You ]

 

More useful explanation:

Basically, an RSS reader lets you search inside blogs, news services, and other stuff on the web that is put into the right format by using an RSS Reader, which lets you check to see what -- if anything -- is new on a given site that you haven't seen yet.  It saves you having to go directly to all the sites, one at a time, and check.  Depending on how the blog is set up, you may get an entire post or just part of one, or just the title, all on one page, with or without pictures.

 

Readings for Blogs & RSS

 

Why bother to read blogs -- who has time, after all?  Try this post from Library Revolution.

 

And see Bloggin' Pneumonia from LJ, at a University library that didn't have time to do a blog.

 

Read WordPress Introduction to Blogging

 

View What is RSS? (scroll down to the video and watch it)

 

The Top 25 (Non-Obvious) Ways RSS Can Make Your Life Easier

 

Why Blog instead of Email?

 

Getting flooded with listserv emails?  Even if you have the digest (bundled together) option enabled?

 

And listservs are a hassle to administrate -- always somebody wanting off to avoid the flood, and then having to be contacted individually, new people to be added, mail bouncing when the server is down, etc.

 

And any time you use them for something practical such as "meeting at 0:00 on date", you get a batch of answering emails such as "I'll be late" or "can we reschedule?" or "okay.  Should I bring snacks?" and other less-than-vital stuff.  Not to mention a copy from everybody who forwards the email to their own staff, and forgets to remove the Reply line so it goes back to the entire listserv. 

 

And don't get me started on auto-responders for "out of the office" messages....

 

Now - consider a blog. 

You get the announcements or information or opinion pieces out there.  You have people able to use RSS to get what they want/when they want/where they want it, and they can go back to it without worrying that they deleted that vital info email.  They can skip the comments if they prefer and stick to the basic useful posts (instead of umpteen more emails with reactions).

 

That's why many places are turning to blogs, since they allow more interaction than a simple list of announcements on a web page, but give the users more discretion in how much interaction is desired.

 

You can tell everybody something with a blog, and it doesn't get lost in mounds of back-from-vacation email that gets deleted too quickly.  It stays posted, and it can be searched.

For example -- if we change a policy at circulation, we could post it on a blog for the staff, so everybody could see it.

 

The catch is, how do you get people to use RSS and keep up with it?  Especially when so many don't check email that often?

That's why the emphasis is on making blogs attractive and useful, so people are more likely to check them often.  And on RSS, which helps you to see when something new has been added, so you don't have to keep checking unnecessarily.

 

Neither is perfect, but which would you prefer? 

* Comments?

 

And who says that only ONE of us has to do all the work on a library blog?  Why can't we collaborate: each do, say, this week's blog entry on a rotating basis?  Or, several in a row if you need to do a series, and then skip the appropriate number of turns?

As long as we update it at least weekly on a regular basis, we can produce some advice and news that should have a shot at holding interest.

 

Fair Warning on Blogs: some blogs may use language or subjects that you are not comfortable with, from time to time -- even librarians!

 

You don't have to read those posts.  Skip them (the ones I recommend in here usually don't dwell on one thing for more than one post, and the language/subjects aren't normally anything you haven't heard before in this building).

If you're really uncomfortable with that blog after several posts, right-click on it on the left-column list and delete the RSS feed.

 

Okay, first, let's get access to some blogs, and try out the RSS service for them.

 

Use Sage for Firefox / built-in for IE7

 

I'm giving you options.  You can use IE7 or Firefox for this (you should be updated to IE7 here and at home).  Instructions for each are below... sort of.

 

For IE 7:

 

IE7 has an RSS reader capability built in.  Strangely enough, it looks a LOT like Firefox now...    Wonder who they copied from this time....

 

* Go to the upper right and see the grayed-out RSS symbol:

 

* The procedure for adding an RSS feed is pretty simple.  Right-click on Ask A Librarian, select "Open in New Tab" and see it change to orange -- with a little star, even!  That means the RSS feed is visible to IE7.  Click on the down arrow to the right and get the drop-down menu:

 

  You can choose either one of these.  Some blogs will have only one to choose from.

 

* Click on one of them.  You get a new page, with a message: "Ask A Librarian.

For Firefox 3.x:

 

The Sage Too extension another one to use instead of just Sage, although regular Sage has been updated for 3.x as well.  You install this the same way you install addons in Firefox.  Remember to give permission to do this if it needs it.

 

Oh, BTW (By The Way): you may need to turn on the Sage, then select Options and then Settings.  Then select Sage Feeds.  This may be needed if you are using Sage in conjunction with some other programs, such as Foxmarks, which groups the RSS Feeds in with the bookmarks when it saves and loads from the Foxmarks server.

 

How to add a blog to your RSS

 

I'm going to use Sage in Firefox for examples, but if you use IE7, use the method there for the actual step-by-step once you get to the blog.

Okay, sometimes you have an obvious icon.  The new standard (set by Mozilla and Firefox, and later adopted by Microsoft and others) is this:    You should see more and more of it on websites.

 

However, a lot of places still use older ones like or or or something similar.

Sometimes, you won't see it at all, but it's still available.

 

Sometimes, though, you won't have an RSS feed... or it's not on that page but someplace less obvious.

 

*Check LisZen   or the Blogging Libraries wiki for library blogs that interest you.

 

* Let's try a practical one: click on The Kept-Up Academic Librarian .

 

* Click on your little Sage leaf up in the toolbar, if it's not already open on the left.

 

* Now, on the Sage sidebar, click on the magnifying glass icon.

 

* You should get a popup window with at least one site feed.  Take the "RSS 2.0" one and click on it to highlight it.  You could use one of the others, but the "2.0" is a newer standard than "1.0", right?

 

BTW (By The Way): You can use "RSS" or "Atom" links with Sage.  It's just two different ways of doing the same thing.

To grossly oversimplify, it's like two phone companies, but you call the same place.  "Atom" is a newer format for RSS and may eventually become the dominant method, but that's a long way from being established as yet. You can mix them as needed in Sage.

 

* Click on the Add Feed button at the bottom of the popup.

 

Now, the feed is on your Sage sidebar.  When you click on the sidebar link, see what you get.

Not all of them look like this, but quite a few.

 

* Now try ACRL E-Learning , and use the magnifying glass to find any links.  Add the link the same way.

This, BTW, is one of the less obvious ones that you have to hunt through several pages to find.  Aren't you glad I did it for you? 

 

Incidently, IE7 doesn't detect any RSS feeds on this page... even though you can plainly see the little orange RSS logo.  Still a few bugs in IE7....

 

* Now, if you get rolling on this (hey -- it could happen!), you might need to organize it.  In the sidebar, click on the Options and Manage Feed Lists.

 

* Select New Folder and call it Training.  It appears at the top.

 

* Close the popup and go back to the sidebar.

 

* Click and drag the ACRL E-Learning up to the Training folder.  It disappears inside.  Open the folder, and there it is.

 

You could organize a lot of feeds within folders, just like documents.  It helps to keep your sidebar tidy after you get a lot of feeds (it could happen!).

 

The rules differ with other feed readers.  Sage is pretty simple and easy to organize.  Most of it is click and drag, so you can alphabetize, move feeds into folders, and so on.

 

* Try some of these other feeds:

 

--   RSS4Lib on how librarians use RSS

--   The Shifted Librarian

--    just for fun: Vampire Librarian - an academic librarian on the night shift, with attitude.  (Warning: language may be rough.)

--    Google Tutor and Google Librarian Central

--    not often library-related, but very practical on a lot of subjects: Lifehacker with advice on removing rings from wood furniture, or 13 book hacks for the library crowd which I thought had some good stuff in it.

 

* Try a web site or a blog on your favorite non-library interest(s).  See if Sage can find an RSS feed for it.

 

When you can't use the RSS their way....

 

Okay, some sites are so focused on using an online service that they assume everyone has to do it that way.  When you try to get the RSS feed, it takes you a page that lists a bunch of services.

 

The trick here is to find the link (put the mouse over links and check the Status Bar at the bottom of your browser window) while you look for a link with "feed" or "rss" or something like that in it.

 

Copy that down (you might have to use a real pen and paper) and then open Sage (or IE) and create a new feed using that address as the one you use.  You might notice the name changes the first time you use it but it works anyway. 

 

RSS Updated

 

* Now, here's the really useful part of RSS.  In a few days, open Sage again and this time, click on the little round-and-round-the-page icon.

 

Sage will search to see if any of your feeds has posted anything new since the last time you looked.  If so, the feed now appears in bold type.

 

Remember: For feeds inside folders, you'll need to open the folders to check.  Sage will update them inside the folders, but the folder font doesn't change.

 

Now, you only need to check those bold feeds to see what's new and if it's worth reading.  The latest post is at the top (they tend to go left, right, left, right down the page -- which sometimes leaves gaps).

 

Unless you subscribe to a Comments feed (some sites have those separately), you won't have a bold for any new comments on posts you've already seen, but only for new posts to those feeds.  If, however, you want to check on the reaction of others to something, you'll usually have that same post shown a little further down.  If it scrolls off the feed, you can go up to the top of the feed and click on the feed name, and go to the site to look at it.

 

Some academic blogs

 

Try the Academic Blog Portal for links and resources.  Dip into some of the blogs on Inside Higher Education's Around the Web feature.

There's the specialized Blog Scholar academic blogging portal.

 

Personal insight -- What I really love are the subtitles on some blogs:

Cranky Professor : You type, and I tell you why 4,500 years of written history shows you're wrong.

Educated and Poor : What is the sound of one student napping?

Not of General Interest : Academics, teaching, books, and fighting introversion one post at a time.

Easily Distracted : Culture, Politics, Academia and Other Shiny Objects.

 

Boy, hard to find any in Arkansas.... 

But here's a famous one that is still going after the author was "outed" (identity revealed) by the Chronicle.  This is the announcement of that, but there are later posts to this.

 

Also try the UA Press blog.   Or the UA School of Law .  Maybe the UA recruiters' blogs ?  It may not be that there aren't any, it's more a matter of finding them.  Not everyone is out to contact the world, or even their own profession.

 

Blog features

 

Blogs can have or not have comments.  The comments, depending on the settings (and the blog software/site) can show up immediately, or wait to be cleared by an editor.

 

Blog entries, called "posts", can be immediately available, or if the settings are there, must wait to be reviewed and approved.

Say, if you had a nervous supervisor who wanted to check on what you wrote before it became public.....   and make sure it complied with policy.

 

And blogs don't have to be public -- they can be restricted to just staff, or even just the blogger.

 

Blogs can have links, graphics, videos (often in the form of podcasts), and other features.  It depends on what your software allows, and your blog host site.  For example, some of the free sites do not allow as much control or fancy graphics until you switch to the paid version.  That explains the simplicity of formats for a lot of blogs, and the complexity of others.

 

We'll look at practical how-to on blogging in the next section on Blogging.

 

BTW: if you use the Foxmarks extension for Firefox, your feeds are included in this, and follow you from computer to computer.  

 

Drafts

 

 

Draft 1

Draft 2