Searching the “New” Web: Blogs & RSS

1. Searching the “New” Web: Blogs & RSS ORALL Annual Meeting October 13, 2005 Presented by Bonnie Shucha UW Law Library bjshucha@wisc.edu

2. What Is the Difference Between a Blog and a Web Site? • A blog IS a Web site • However, the structure is slightly different than a traditional website All convertibles are cars, but not all cars are convertibles All blogs are Web sites, but not all Web sites are blogs

3. What Is the Difference Between a Blog and a Web Site? • As with any Web site. . . • There are some really great blogs • There are some really rotten ones • And there are a lot of them in between

4. Blog Characteristics • Brief informational posts arranged in reverse chronological order • Timestamp for each post • Archives of previously posted content • Comment feature offers interactivity

5. The Blogosphere • There are 14.2 Million weblogs with over 1.3 billion links • The blogosphere continues to double about every 5.5 months • A new blog is created about every second and over 80,000 created daily From: Technorati’s State of the Blogosphere http://www.technorati.com/weblog

6. Blogs are Everywhere!

7. The Importance of Blogs • Help our patrons and ourselves: • Stay informed about areas of interest • Get up-to-the-minute news & information • See viewpoints outside the mainstream media

8. Example: WisBlawg Blawg= Law-related blog WisBlawg offers legal research and Internet news & information with an emphasis on Wisconsin WisBlawg is viewed about 100 times per day http://wisblawg.blogspot.com

9. Blog Features • Informational posts with links to relevant sites • Images (optional) • Comment feature

10. Finding Blogs • Law Library Blogs • 48 blogs associated with a library • 20 blogs by law librarians • 7 law library association or committee blogs • For a list, see the “Shucha List” athttp://library.law.wisc.edu/wisblawg/blogslistpublic.htm

11. Finding Blogs • Other Library Related Blogs • Blogwithoutalibrary http://www.blogwithoutalibrary.net/links.html • List of blogs by library type • Library Weblogs http://www.libdex.com/weblogs.html • List of blogs by country • LIS Blogsource http://lisblogsource.net/ • Blog about library blogs

12. Finding Blogs • Law Blogs (Blawgs) • RSS News Feeds for Law, TVC Alert -http://www.virtualchase.com/resources/rss_law.html • Blawg: Law & Legal Related Weblogs -http://www.blawg.org/

13. Searching Blog Content • Blog Search Engines • Google Blog Searchhttp://blogsearch.google.com/ • Feedsterhttp://feedfinder.feedster.com/ • Technoratihttp://www.technorati.com/ • Daypophttp://www.daypop.com/

14. Evaluating Blogs • BlogPulse - http://blogpulse.com/profile • Tool to help you evaluate the content and influence of a blog • who authors it • how active the blog is • how it ranks compared to other blogs • what it's about

15. Reading Blogs • Good - As a Web page • Stay current but requires reader to visit multiple sites daily to check for updates • Better - Via a RSS feed • All updates delivered to one location • Read multiple feeds in one place

16. RSS • What Is RSS? • Rich Site Summary OR Really Simple Syndication See LawLibTech (Cindy Chick) RSS Tutorial: What Is RSS, http://www.lawlibtech.com/archives/000098.html

17. RSS Feeds Other Than Blogs • Law-Related • Dockets • Recent opinions • Journal tables of contents • Government agency news See TVC Alert’s RSS News Feeds for Law, http://www.virtualchase.com/resources/rss_law.html

18. RSS Feeds Other Than Blogs • Other • Newspapers • Custom News Alerts • Feedster • Google News Alerts • SEC Filings • Product Recalls

19. RSS for Library Content • Databases • ProQuest -http://www.il.proquest.com/proquest/rss/ • SFX & Metalib (RSS Creator) - http://public.csusm.edu/dwalker/rss.htm • OPACs • Innovative Interfaces - http://www.iii.com/news/pr_template.php?id=256

20. RSS Feeds Other Than Blogs • Coming Soon? • LexisNexis ECLIPSE • Westclip – Already available with West IntraClip

21. RSS • “Anyone who needs to monitor current news on a regular basis will need to understand and use RSS in some form going forward.” Source: LawLibTech RSS Tutorial: What Is RSS, http://www.lawlibtech.com/archives/000098.html

22. RSS Readers Turns RSS feed… … into something readable

23. RSS Readers • Click on or RSS link on blog or web site to get the URL for the feed • Subscribe to the feed with a RSS reader which displays it in readable format • With a RSS reader, multiple feeds are delivered to a single software or Web application

24. RSS Readers • RSS readers are also known as: • RSS aggregators • news readers • news aggregators

25. Free RSS Readers • Web-based • MyYahoo - http://my.yahoo.com/ • Bloglines - http://www.bloglines.com • Pluck (Web or IE Plug-in) - http://www.pluck.com/

26. Free RSS Readers • Software • FeedReader - http://www.feedreader.com/ • RSS Bandit - http://www.rssbandit.org/

27. Bloglines • Free Web-based RSS reader • Use to read: • RSS feeds • Email Listservs! • Subscribe at http://www.bloglines.com/ • Tutorial movie (UC Berkeley Library):http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/BIOS/rss.html

28. RSS Feeds

29. Posts

30. Drawbacks of RSS Readers • Can’t easily reply to posts • Posts not saved – unless you save them • May get ads from some feeds or readers • Predictions that spy ware will soon invade RSS

31. “We librarians, as information experts, do our patrons a disservice if we fail to make an effort at tapping into some of the information that may only be found in the blogosphere.” From “Mining Information Gold in the Blogosphere,” AALL Spectrum, November 2004