Walker Management Library in the Owen Graduate School of Management
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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 RSS or XML or MultiRSS 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:

Bloglines   My Yahoo   Newsgator   My MSN   Google Feeds   Pluck

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):

Feed Reader Cost & Type
Bloglines free, web-based
Google Reader free, web-based
Pluck free, web-based, plugins for Firefox and IE also available
My Yahoo! free, web-based
Sage free, Firefox browser extension
FeedReader free, Windows platform
RSSOwl free, cross-platform
NewsGator free, web-based, or $29 Windows platform that integrates with Microsoft Outlook
NewzCrawler $25, Windows platform

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 RSS 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

 





Walker Management Library, 401 21st Avenue South, Nashville, TN 37203
phone: 615-322-2970 | fax: 615-343-0061

© 2002- Walker Management Library | Last updated: January 2007

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