Steven Cohen--law librarian, blogger, and all-around funnyman--did a quick overview of the hot new sites employing RSS. RSS is on the verge of being HUGE; Internet Explorer 7 has an RSS reader built in, just like Firefox has been doing for years. Windows Vista automatically has a feed icon on the desktop; it doesn't say "RSS", it says "News". People will often be using it without realizing. Start thinking about what kinds of library information can be pushed to these RSS readers; yet one more way to get the library message out!
Steven's Picks for RSS Hotness:
- Google Reader as main RSS reader. He claims it's much easier to teach than Bloglines (but I lurve Bloglines! I will not defect!)
- Libworm searches only library blogging community and library feeds
- Page2RSS for those times when you think, "Man I wish this site had a feed!!" Put in a URL and click "to RSS" and a feed is created for you. Neat!
- Techmeme features what's hot in the technology community
- Opencongress.org shows what legislative issues bloggers are talking about; see the continually updated status of bills, senators, representatives, committees.
- Justia searches federal district court filings & dockets (PACER) for FREE - goes back to January 2006
- Library catalogs - University of Oklahoma integrated RSS into catalog AND call number area so that students can subscribe to feeds in a certain subject and find out right away when new books are added to the catalog. Tres cool.
- Twitter is IM/blogging/text messaging "on crack".
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