We hope you enjoyed Creating your blog and exploring other blogs. We have certainly enjoyed reading your posts.
Are you ready to move on to Thing 2? Here goes.....
Keeping up to Date - Part 1: RSS
Welcome to Thing 2. In this Thing we'll explore tools that will help you to keep up-to-date and aware of goings on in health care and the library and information world, and also make it easy to share news and stories with others. As this is quite a large thing, it will be broken down into 3 separate posts: RSS, Twitter and Alerts. You can work through them in one go, or spread them over the fortnight - whatever you prefer to do. When you reach the Twitter section, you will find setting up a Twitter account is optional. However, please still read through the section as you still have a task, even if you don't Tweet!
RSS
RSS (commonly known as Really Simple Syndication) allows you to view new content from web sites, blog entries, etc in one place, without having to visit the individual sites. This obviously makes following news, developments and updates a lot easier, as all the news comes to you!
Have a look at this video from Commoncraft:
The first step you need to take when subscribing to RSS feeds is to sign up for a feed reader. There are many available but we will use Google Reader as you have already created an account with Google.
• Go to Google Reader at www.google.com/reader or click "More" from the top of a Google page and choose Reader from the drop down list.
• Sign in with your Google account username and password
Once logged in you will see the homepage of your account. Down the left-hand side is a navigation panel and on the right is the main section of the page where you will see the content of your feeds. Automatically displayed are some posts from Google to help you get started. You can read through these now or come back to them later.
Your Thing Task 1: To show you how to receive updates from a site we will start by subscribing to the feed for this Blog.
- In the blog's sidebar on the right you will see the heading "Subscribe to" and underneath it are the options to subscribe to the posts and the comments. For now, just subscribe to the posts.
- To do this, click the link to the posts and a drop down menu will appear listing a number of feed readers.
- From the list choose "Add to Google"
- A new window will open giving you the option to either add the feed to your Google homepage or Google Reader. Click the "Add to Google Reader" option.
- You will now be taken to your Google Reader account. In the navigation panel on the left you will see 12 Things under the Subscriptions heading. If you click 12 Things you will see the lastest update from the Blog. Updates appear newest first and as you move through a list of posts they become "read". Unread posts are bold, and you simply click the title of a post to access the original blog on which it was published.
- Congratulations - you have now added an RSS Feed to your reader!
Subscribing to Other RSS Feeds
As you browse the internet, look out for the orange RSS logo and add interesting feeds to your Reader. However, be aware that not all website/blogs have buttons like the one on the 12 Things blog that allow you to easily subscribe to feeds using Google Reader. In some cases you will have to copy and paste the feed's URL into your reader following the steps below:
Now, try adding some more RSS feeds to your reader. You may want to look at some of the following blogs and websites to get you started, or search for sites on your own personal interests.
Managing your Reader
As you add more feeds to your Google Reader it's useful to know how to manage them.
Starred Items: Each post has a panel underneath with a star symbol at the very left hand side. Click this star to turn it yellow and add the post to your Favourites. To view all your favourited items click on "Starred items" at the top of the left hand navigation panel.
Sharing: You can share a post with your circle on Google+ (if you are a member of this) or email the link to others.
Tags: To Tag a post with a subject of your choice, click the "Edit Tags" and add tags as you wish. These tags will appear in the navigation panel on the left.
Folders: You can save feeds into Folders (e.g.health librarians, journals, education, etc - whatever you choose!). To do this, click the down arrow to the right of Subscriptions in the left hand navigation panel (you may have to hover your mouse over subscriptions to see this arrow!). Click the arrow and then choose: "Manage Subscriptions". You will see a list of your Subscriptions. Click Add to a Folder and then choose "new Folder". Give the folder a name. This name will now appear next to the subscription. Back on the Google Reader home page you will find your feeds arranged into the folders you have created.
Unsubscribe / Rename: To unsubscribe from a feed, click the arrow to the right of the feed's name and choose "unsubscribe" from the menu. You can also Rename a feed from this menu too.
You may also like to think about how you could use RSS in a library setting. Have a look at 10 Ways Librarians can use RSS as a starting point.
There are other ways of keeping track of RSS feeds, rather than just Google Reader:
Your Thing Task 2:
So, for this thing you should have added the 12 Things RSS feed to your reader, and also may have added a few others, either from the suggestions or from your own browsing.
Now write a short blog entry on your experiences. What are your impressions of RSS? Do you think you will find it useful in your work or personal life? How could you use it within your library?
When ready, move on to Part 2 of Keeping up to Date: Twitter.
- Once you have located a website's RSS feed (probably by clicking the RSS logo on the website) copy the page's web address.
- Open another tab or window, and sign into your Google Reader account.
- Click the red "Subscribe" button at the top of the left hand navigation panel. Paste the address you copied into the box.
- Click "Add" to add the website's feed to your subscriptions.
Now, try adding some more RSS feeds to your reader. You may want to look at some of the following blogs and websites to get you started, or search for sites on your own personal interests.
- Phil Bradleys Blog
- BMJ Blogs
- BMJ Research
- Trip database
- BBC News:
- The Wikiman (Ned Potter)
Managing your Reader
Starred Items: Each post has a panel underneath with a star symbol at the very left hand side. Click this star to turn it yellow and add the post to your Favourites. To view all your favourited items click on "Starred items" at the top of the left hand navigation panel.
Sharing: You can share a post with your circle on Google+ (if you are a member of this) or email the link to others.
Tags: To Tag a post with a subject of your choice, click the "Edit Tags" and add tags as you wish. These tags will appear in the navigation panel on the left.
Folders: You can save feeds into Folders (e.g.health librarians, journals, education, etc - whatever you choose!). To do this, click the down arrow to the right of Subscriptions in the left hand navigation panel (you may have to hover your mouse over subscriptions to see this arrow!). Click the arrow and then choose: "Manage Subscriptions". You will see a list of your Subscriptions. Click Add to a Folder and then choose "new Folder". Give the folder a name. This name will now appear next to the subscription. Back on the Google Reader home page you will find your feeds arranged into the folders you have created.
Unsubscribe / Rename: To unsubscribe from a feed, click the arrow to the right of the feed's name and choose "unsubscribe" from the menu. You can also Rename a feed from this menu too.
You may also like to think about how you could use RSS in a library setting. Have a look at 10 Ways Librarians can use RSS as a starting point.
There are other ways of keeping track of RSS feeds, rather than just Google Reader:
- Web Browsers: some web browsers, including IE7 and above, and Firefox have built in RSS readers and these work in a similar way to saving web pages in your favourites or bookmarks. However, the disadvantage is that you will only be able to see them from the computer on which you saved them.
- Email: some email programmes, such as Outlook, have built in RSS readers.
- Personalised Start Pages: you can set up your own personalised home page where you can keep track of RSS feeds, plus monitor email and add gadgets of your choice. Examples include iGoogle, and Netvibes and we'll be taking a look at these in Thing 5.
Your Thing Task 2:
So, for this thing you should have added the 12 Things RSS feed to your reader, and also may have added a few others, either from the suggestions or from your own browsing.
Now write a short blog entry on your experiences. What are your impressions of RSS? Do you think you will find it useful in your work or personal life? How could you use it within your library?
When ready, move on to Part 2 of Keeping up to Date: Twitter.
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