RSS
Tim Staniland
Assistant Librarian
Northern Lincolnshire and Goole Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Keeping clinicians up to date.
What are RSS feeds?
How do I read them?
Where can I find RSS feeds?
What do they look like?
Adding a feed to your chosen reader.
My Library – National Library for
Health.
TDNet!
Feeds that may interest you.
If a clinician read one article a
day, they would be 55 centuries
behind after 1 year.
Sackett DL, Haynes RB, Guyatt GH, et al. Clinical epidemiology: a basic science for
clinical medicine. 2nd ed. Boston: Little, Brown, 1991
A few ways to help clinicians keep
up to date
Email ToCs alerts
Produce bulletins for specialities
Perform literature searches
Circulate new book lists
Email specialist groups with latest updates
NLH specialist libraries
Visit specialist websites regularly
Problems
Email – busy clinicians are often swamped by
emails, and may delete without reading.
Bulletins – labour intensive; rely on the librarian
to ‘choose’ relevant material.
Lit searches – would be very labour intensive if
they were done for everybody.
New book lists – not very current by their very
nature.
NLH specialist libraries – rely on clinicians
knowing what is available and where to find it.
Visiting the same websites to see if there is
anything new or updated is time and labour
intensive.
Solution?
What if you could have the latest articles in
your interest area delivered to your
desktop as soon as it is made available?
RSS feeds could provide the answer!
What are RSS feeds?
RSS - Really Simple Syndication.
OR Rich Site Summary
OR RDF (Resource Description Framework) Site Summary
You may see ATOM feed – treat as the
same as RSS
RSS feeds are an XML-based
(extensible markup language) format for
sharing and distributing web content.
BMJ
How do you receive RSS feeds?
An RSS reader (sometimes called a
newsreader or news aggregator), allows
you to receive and view feeds from various
sources in a single interface. The reader
checks the feeds regularly and displays
any updated content it finds.
Readers can be web based eg Google
reader, NLH.
Readers can be a piece of software on
your desktop eg SharpReader.
Which reader to use?
The choice of reader is a personal one.
Pros and cons to each approach.
Web based readers have the advantage of
being accessible from any internet
enabled PC.
Desktop feed readers are often less
obtrusive and can offer increased
functionality.
NLH My Library
Pros



My library – easy to set up feeds
Athens authenticated – seamless (!) access
Single interface
Cons



Limited functionality
4 items by default
Requires another click to see all items from a
feed
Akregator
Mozilla Thunderbird
AOL Explorer
NetNewsWire
Avant Browser
Netscape Browser
Blam!
Netscape Navigator 9
BlogBridge
NewsAccess
BottomFeeder
NewsBreak
Claws Mail
Newsbeuter
Cooliris
NewsFire
FeedBeast
NewsFox
FeedDemon
Omea
FeedGhost
OmniWeb
Feedreader
Opera Mail
Feedview
Pegasus Mail
Flock
RSS Bandit
FreeRange WebReader
RSSOwl
Gnus
Safari
Try
Wiikipedia or Google when looking
for a feed reader.
Hubdog
Sage
IBM Lotus Notes
SeaMonkey
Internet Explorer
Shiira
Finding a feed
What to look for:
Where to find a feed
TDNet
NLH feed directory
Journal homepage
Keep your eyes peeled!
NLH My Library
Adding a feed
http://www.library.nhs.uk
/mylibrary/
BMJ
JAMA - Journal of the
American Medical
Association
Google reader adding a feed
www.google.com
www.bmj.com/rss/latest.xml
TDNet
Your one-stop shop for locating health
related RSS feeds.
Add them to My Library quickly and easily.
They do have drawbacks however – but I
am assured that these issues will be
addressed in time.
TDNet
Feeds that may be of interest to you
Information Technology & Libraries
He@lth Information on the Internet
Computers in Libraries
NHS Articles from Microsoft

www.microsoft.com/uk/nhs/rss.aspx
Check TDNet for ‘libraries’ or ‘information’

Go to the hosting site and see if they provide
a feed ie Ebsco, Proquest.
Setting up a current awareness
service using RSS feeds
Information Services INSIDE (Integrating
News Sources In Desktop Environments)
is a project using RSS and Atom feeds to
deliver current awareness information into
the intranet sites which users already
visit.
Questions?