The Acronym RSS has cropped up suddenly in the technology world. RSS has been described as Real Simple Syndication or Rich Rite Summary. The RSS feed, in the form of an XML file, is made available on the web site and a site with one or more feeds is said to be syndicated. The feed can be used to subscribe to a news source, a blog or any other site and it will provide information on a regular basis to the user’s site. RSS is very useful since it gives information from various websites of your choice at one selected site. The user can log on to one place and view all the information.
The uses of RSS in libraries is obvious. There is an interesting article at the ALA website at http://www.ala.org/ala/pla/plapubs/technotes/LibrariesandRSS.pdf
The libraries can use RSS to promote their own library blog to get views and opinions about different subjects. Also libraries can use their RSS feed to provide information about new library resources, change in hours, upcoming activities etc. Since lot of journals and book sellers are promoting their own RSS feeds, the library can either subscribe to those and patrons can view the information through the libraries RSS or the library can provide a list of useful RSS feeds for the patrons. There are various uses of RSS and the list can keep growing as new thing come up. I think libraries are definitely on the right track with RSS.
