What is RSS?
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a web feed format in XML that provides summaries of web content together with links to the electronic full text.
Many websites, databases and electronic journals allow you to set up RSS feeds for articles or journals important in your field. In this way, you can be alerted whenever a new issue of your favourite e-journal is published, and automatically receive an online table of contents with links to the articles.
How do I use RSS?
You can read feeds using web-based feed readers/aggregators like Google Reader, Bloglines or Netvibes. These let you read your subscribed RSS feeds from any networked computer and keep track of what you have already read. You can also use the built-in feed reading capability of web browsers like Firefox, IE, Safari etc. or of email clients like Mozilla Thunderbird. This method works best if you mainly use your own computer.
You can set up a feed whenever you see the or logos. Right-click on the logo to get the feed’s URL, copy it, then pasteit into your reader, and you will begin receiving feeds from the website, journal or database you chose. If you decide to use a particular web-based reader on your own computer, you can set this as a preference so that in future when you click on an RSS icon it will automatically subscribe you to it using that service, and you won’t have to copy and paste the URL.
Example: Google reader (
Below are the steps needed to subscribe to the RSS feed from the Legal Informatics Blog in Google reader by pasting the feed’s URL into Google reader. You won’t always need to do it this way but it is good to know how.
On the blog, look for the RSS feed icon or link (in this case it is hard to spot as it’s justtwo blue text links at the very bottom of the page,onefor subscribing to blog entries and one for subscribing to comments:
Now right-click on the Entries (RSS) link and choose “Copy Shortcut” if you are using Internet Explorer, “Copy Link Location” if you are using Firefox (this will vary from browser to browser).
Now go to the Google reader page – you should be signed in with your Google ID. Click on Add a Subscription. In the box that appears, paste the URL you just copied from the blog, then click Add. Now you are subscribed to a feed of the blog entries and any future ones will appear in Google reader.
Getting information to come to you: 28/10/111