Thousands of our
readers now subscribe to our free, weekly newsletter, New This Week,
using blog-reading software, also known as RSS readers or
aggregators.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a convenient, spam-free method for
tracking not only New
This Week but hundreds and thousands of "newsfeeds": news sites, blogs, library
reference resources, and much
more.
If you are already familiar
with RSS newsfeeds, drop http://lii.org
into your RSS reader. Our
main feed address is http://lii.org/ntw.rss
Or if you use Bloglines, My MSN, personalized Google, My Yahoo, or Newsgator, just use one of the following:
To read our RSS
feed, you need a newsreader (a tool that allows you to subscribe and track RSS feeds, sometimes called newsfeeds). If you already use My Yahoo, My MSN, or personalized Google, you don't need additional software--see above. The Firefox browser also offers feed-reading capability through Live Bookmarks.
If you are new to RSS, try this tutorial, based on the free blog-reading software, Bloglines.
We base our instructions on
Bloglines because it's free, easy, and web-based. We at LII don't
have any connection to Bloglines other than we like it. It's easy to guide you through Bloglines because you don't have to install anything
on your computer.
1. Go to www.bloglines.com
and set up a (free) account.
2. Log in
to Bloglines with your new account.
1. Select
(click on) the "Add" link on the upper left-hand side of Bloglines,
under " My Feeds."
4. The
right-hand side of Bloglines should say "Subscribe." Below that, you
should see a box that says "Blog or Feed URL." Type or copy and paste http://lii.org
into the "Blog or Feed URL" box, and click "Subscribe."
5. You
may now see up to ten different feeds. Select and subscribe to this feed: http://lii.org/ntw.rss
(Ignore any other feeds that might appear.)
Your feeds will
appear on the left side of your Bloglines account. Reading your feeds
is flat-out easy: just click on the names of the feeds. Feeds with new
posts are bolded.
Poke around
Bloglines. It's easy to use. You can quickly learn how
to create folders to organize your feeds, unsubscribe to some
of the feeds that Bloglines gave you when you signed up, and find and
add new feeds.
If you are a
librarian, give yourself extra time to familiarize yourself with this
new technology so you are ready when patrons ask about RSS.
Bloglines is
searchable. You can also find feeds in Bloglines through its "Related
Feeds" feature. (Bloglines recommends the New York Times and Scientific
American to New This Week readers. A compliment to you and to
us!)
You can
also browse the blogosphere with Technorati
or Feedster.
If you search LII, you will see we have added
a number of good blog-finding tools, including a selection especially for librarians and library groupies, Blogbib.
We use Bloglines as the newsreader for this tutorial because it is free, Web-based, and full-featured. Other free, web-based choices for newsreaders include My MSN, personalized Google, My Yahoo, and Firefox's Live Bookmarks feature.
