RSS News Feeds

If you frequently check web sites or "blogs" to get information or gather breaking news in your field of interest, RSS may be for you.

RSS, known as Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication, is a new trend in syndicated Internet information delivery. The web links to "RSS feeds", also known as syndicated news feeds, are often denoted by small orange buttons on web pages that read "XML" or "RSS". You may also see this symbol , which has been adopted as a new standard by many sites. XML symbols may be used because XML is the labeling language used to build the feeds.

• When you click on one of these icons or a link labeled RSS, if you have an old browser version, you may see the raw "code view" of an RSS feed. This is like looking at the HTML code of a web page. Newer browsers will understand the code and display the text from the code in a legible manner, as well as offering ways within the browser of "subscribing" to the feed.
• The idea is that you do not have to manually visit each specific site that you're interested in. Information from that web site is gathered automatically by your web browser or other application. Having all of your information in a single organizing interface can save time compared to visiting many individual web sites.
• The web addresses (URL) of RSS feeds are important. You can copy the RSS URLs and paste them into many types of home pages, such as Yahoo (My Yahoo), Google Reader, Netvibes, Bloglines, and more.
• Many journal publishers are now offering their site updates and journal table of contents as RSS feeds. Ebling Library, U. of Wisc.-Madison has a great list of these, organized by topic as well as by titles A to Z.
• Most news web sites and almost all web logs (or "blogs") offer RSS feeds.
• NIH funding opportunities are now available in RSS format. PubMed searches can be saved as RSS feeds.