Any RSS fans out there?
- From: John Mark Ockerbloom <ockerblo@[redacted]>
- Subject: Any RSS fans out there?
- Date: Thu, 02 Sep 2004 10:46:43 -0400
I've been getting the occasional request from readers to provide
an RSS feed of new books listed on The Online Books Page. I've
known about RSS for a while, but don't use it myself regularly.
RSS is a way of feeding news and other information out to programs
and sites that can then alert readers about
new items they might find of interest, often by aggregating a lot
of RSS feeds into a personal panopticon, so you can instantly spot
and pursue things of interest to you.
The two ways people normally use RSS are either to install an
RSS aggregator client (which displays multiple RSS feeds from
various sites as the user directs), or to use a portal site
that can build "channels" from RSS feeds.
It's possible for RSS clients to be included directly in Web browsers,
but most of the browsers out there today don't come with RSS capability.
(There are various third-party plugins and standalone programs
available, some free, some not. I don't know which ones are particularly
good and trustworthy.) And many portal sites limit you to RSS feeds
approved by the portal provider. There's also an annoying standards war
as people tussle over the correct format and version to use for feeds.
(I decided to go with simple for starters.) So there's a bit of a hump
to get over for folks who are interested in experimenting with RSS feeds.
That said, I've gone ahead and made a simple RSS feed for new online books.
Right now it's strictly experimental: I may muck with it or withdraw it
in the future. It's updated in daily chunks, and is meant to contain
50-100 of the most recent additions. Interested readers can point their
aggregators and portals to
http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/newrss.xml
to take a look.
Feedback and suggestions (both about the RSS feed itself, and about recommended
tools for viewing it and other feeds) are welcome. If it seems to have good
potential, I may turn it into a public site feature.
Thanks,
John Mark Ockerbloom
Editor, The Online Books Page