About The Spotlight
The Spotlight is a blog where you can read about the latest news, announcements,
events, new resources, and workshops going on in the Walker Management Library.
You can subscribe to the feed from this blog and get the scoop as soon
as it's posted. In fact, you can push content from any website that has an  or  or  button
to the aggregator of your choice. If the concepts of "blogs" and "feeds" are
unfamiliar to you, read on.
Jump to:
I'm already RSS savvy!
If you are already
familiar with RSS feeds, drop The Spotlight into
your RSS reader. The main feed address is:
http://wmlspotlight.wordpress.com/feed/
Or
if you use Bloglines, MyYahoo!, Newsgator, My MSN, Google,
or Pluck, just use one of the following:
What is a blog?
The word "blog" is short for "web log." A blog is a single webpage of
written entries. A blog usually has a sidebar containing links, categories
and archives. The entries on a blog are organized in reverse-chronological
order, which means when the author adds a new entry, it goes at the top, pushing
all the older entries down and into the archives. Readers can search a blog
and contribute to it by commenting as a guest or a member. Originally serving
as a publicly accessible personal journal for an individual, blogs have become
increasingly popular with institutions, such as libraries, to enhance their
services. The action of posting entries to a blog is blogging, and the one
who does so is called a blogger. The Internet environment for blogs to exist
is known as blogsphere, and a collection of links to other blogs is called
a blogroll.
What is a feed?
A feed is a data format used for providing users with
frequently updated content. Content distributors syndicate a web feed, thereby
allowing users to subscribe to it. Making a collection of feeds
accessible in one spot is known as aggregation.
What is RSS?
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is an XML format designed for sharing web
content like news headlines. An RSS service (also known as an RSS channel)
consists of a list of items, each of which contains a headline, description,
and a link to a web page.
Where do I get a feed reader?
There are many different feed readers or aggregators available,
many for free. Most feed readers are applications that you download and install.
Some others are web-based services you sign-up for that work inside your
browser or you view on a webpage. If you are using the latest versions of Internet
Explorer, Firefox, Opera or Safari,
you can even subscribe to this feed directly through your web browser. Some
email programs, such as Mozilla's
Thunderbird,
also function as RSS readers.
Additional feed
readers (by no means an exhaustive list):
How do I subscribe?
The process of signing up
for feeds can be quite simple. If you have chosen to use a web-based feed reader,
once you register with that site, you enter
the URL of the feed you wish to receive into the feed reader, and a few clicks
later you are ready to receive and read feeds, including the WML Spotlight.
Copy and paste the following URL into your feed reader: http://wmlspotlight.wordpress.com/feed/
Typically on most sites that have feeds, you can just click
on the button
(or one of the other orange feed buttons) that is often found at the bottom
of the page, and you'll get the URL you need to add to your aggregator of
choice.
Additionally, most blogs also allow you to subscribe to comments
as well. If you really want to keep up with who says what, then you can drop
this URL into your reader as well:
http://wmlspotlight.wordpress.com/comments/feed/
Why should I care about all of this?
By subscribing to RSS feeds, you can stay on top of the news and information
you need without using your email system and without repeatedly checking multiple
websites to see if they have been updated. RSS simplifies the way you stay
informed and helps you take control of overloaded email inboxes.
Where can I learn more about this?
Where can I find more feeds?
Typically, many businesses, journals, newspapers, magazines, libraries, institutions,
and personal blogs already syndicate web feeds. It's just a matter of determining
whether or not they do, and then subscribing to them. Take a look at what you
are already reading online - you may be surprised!
If you want to see what else is out there, there is a plethora
of search engines and tools to help you find blogs. More often than not, these
guide you to either personal blogs or helpful, informational blogs run by individuals
or small organizations. If you want news feeds, it might
be easier to go straight to the source and find the feed that way.
Here are some discovery tools:
Other Blogs and Feeds of Interest
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