Item 8: RSS & Newsreaders - Find Some Feeds

Now that you have a newsreader (your Bloglines account), let's spend some more time finding more feeds. There are several ways you can locate newsfeeds:

• When visiting your favorite websites -- look for a news feed icon that indicates the website provides it. Often a feed icon will be displayed somewhere in the navigation bar of the site. (Here's an image that contains a sampling of several feed icons).
  
  
• Other Search tools that can help you find feeds:
  
  • Feedster - One of the largest collections of RSS feeds, Feedster lets you search for feeds in three categories: news, blogs & podcasts
    
  • Topix.net - This search tool allows you to locate recent newsfeed items based upon keyword or phrase searching. The tool focuses specifically on news and media outlet RSS feeds for information, not weblogs.
    
  • Syndic8.com - Syndic8 is an open directory of RSS feeds that contains thousands of RSS feeds that users have submitted.
    
  • Google Blog Search This one is limited to blogs, but it can help you find blogs that might be of interest to you
    
  • Technorati - Technorati is a popular blog finding tool that lets you search for blogs. Since RSS feeds are inherent to all blogging tools, Technorati Blog Search can help you find RSS feeds for topic specific blogs you may be interested in. We'll be working more in-depth with Technorati in Unit 14, but you don't have to wait until then to fiddle around with it.
    

Also, if you want to keep up with Library related blogs, there are two wikis out there that list Library related blogs.

• LISWiki - Weblogs
  

• The Blogging Libraries Wiki
  

You can add feeds to your Bloglines if you know the URL of that RSS feed. Back on the Bloglines page, above your list of feeds, there are three short headings: Add, Edit, and Options. Click on Add, and you can add by URL, or conduct searches by category. Try "Quick Pick Subscriptions" for a list of popular blogs. Edit will allow you to delete feeds that you don't want any more, and Options lets you customize how you want your feeds to be displayed to you.

Activities:

1. Explore some of the search tools noted above that can help you locate some additional newsfeeds.
2. Add some feeds to your Bloglines account. Be sure to include some library-related feeds.
   
3. Create a blog post about your experience. Ideas: Which method of finding feeds was easiest - going to your favorite sites or searching for them? Which search tool was the easiest for you? Which was more confusing? How can you see RSS feeds being used by the library? What kind of information would library patrons be interested in getting via RSS, if it were available?