Google Reader will be retired in July - what are the alternatives?

Google Reader will be retired on 1st July this year.

For those of you who have set up Google Reader to use feeds to keep up to date with database searches, blogs and news feeds the good news is there are a few alternatives.

The most popular of these alternatives, at the time of writing, is Feedly: http://www.feedly.com/

We like Feedly, it's incredibly easy to transfer your RSS feeds from Google Reader to Feedly. All we did was sign in to the Feedly app (available on Android and iOS) using our Google login details and Feedly did the rest - we were up and running in less than five minutes.

Feedly is also available on the web - when using Firefox or Chrome (but not Internet Explorer).

If you have any questions about this, or would like any help doing it, please let us know.

RSS: Google Reader

Here's a little video about how to use Google Reader for your RSS feeds. Of course, there are other Readers available, just see our other blog posts on RSS for further details.

If you'd like us to set up a tutorial on how to use RSS feeds, just ask. Enjoy the video and have a great Easter vacation!

What is RSS? (man)

A very sweet (short) video on RSS (Really Simple Syndication) by 1938kids See our other blog posts on this too.

Microblogging in HE, & other Web 2.0 tools

Are you thinking of using Web 2.0 tools for research, administration or teaching? Make a quick start with the web2practice user guides from JISC.


The web2practice guides explain how emergent web technologies like RSS, microblogging and social media can enhance your working (and learning) practice.

Each guide consists of a short animated video explaining the key concepts, supported by a more in-depth printable overview of the topic covering the potential uses, risks and how to get started.


The guides cover the following topics:

* Social Media

* RSS

* Collaborative Writing

* Poscasting

* Microblogging... with further topics planned.


The specific guides can be found via the above links and from the main JISC Web 2.0 webpage.


Do let us know what you think.

RSS feeds & Feed scrapers

Happy New Year!

If you are enjoying using RSS feeds but are finding some websites you would like a feed for don't have any available, there is a solution for you - Feed scrapers!

Feed scrapers take the web address of a webpage without an RSS feed and will create a feed for you. This can then be collected by your feed reader, just copy and paste the shortcut into your feed reader as normal (see RSS feeds for more on feed readers).

There are a few feed scrapers around, you could try:

* Feedfire.com (you will need to register, this is free)

* Diffbot.com (no need to register, but this is in beta/testing)

Alternatively, you could use a page monitoring service such as:

* Watch that page.com


Email us with your questions & let us know how you get on with these.


With thanks to Patrick Maitland-Cullen & Jenny Harbour, NHS Scotland for these tips (Library & Information Update, September 2009).

RSS in Plain English: video

This is another very good video from those excellent people at CommonCraft.com.

It gives an introduction to RSS and lasts only 3.5 minutes! This and our previous blog post should get you up and running.

As a well known supermarket says, go on - 'try something new today!'

10 websites to help you keep up-to-date with scholarly journal contents

This is an excellent blog post from the 'Spineless' blog at Heriot-Watt University. It lists ten resources to keep you up to date with scholarly journal contents. If you have your feed reader set up you will find plenty of journal RSS feeds to subscribe to here.

If you would like to know more about setting up a RSS feed reader see our previous blog post.

What on earth is RSS: and why you should, and how you can, get a blog reader

What is RSS?

RSS stands for 'Really Simple Syndication' or 'Rich Site Summary'. RSS lets you choose to receive content from a number of websites and read it in one place (websites push content - or 'feed' it - out to you) rather than you visiting each website.

What can an RSS Feed Reader do for me?

• Save you a lot of time and keep you up to date with news and research in your subject area
  
  
• It’s separate from your email, so won’t bombard you with extra mail
  
  
• Puts you in charge - you decide when you want to view the content - once or twice a week is enough to keep up to date

What ‘news’ can I subscribe to?

• Tables of Contents for your favourite journals via Zetoc: you will need your Athens password to set these up, after that they will automatically feed into your account
  
  
• Database searches:, such as PubMed - set up a search on PubMed, select ‘send to RSS’, the information will pop into your reader. Then every time an article is added to PubMed with those search terms it will automatically feed into your feed reader
  
  
• News from these sites (and many others)
  
  National Library for Health
  
  BBC Health
  
  NHS Behind the Headlines

For example, see the end of our blog; it has automatic updates from several health news feeds

• Blogs – to support you in your work and keep you up to date with important new resources, for example:
  
  AECC Library blog
  
  BU Library blogs
  
  To search for other blogs, for example on Chiropractic, try these search engines:
  
  http://technorati.com/
  
  http://www.google.com/blogsearch
  
  http://www.icerocket.com/

How do I get a feed reader?

To use RSS, you will need a feed reader. We recommend a web based product, you will be able to access this from wherever you are on the web. They are very easy to use.

Depending on your choice, you can then subscribe to the content in various ways, such as dragging the URL of the RSS feed into your news reader or by cutting and pasting the URL into a feed reader.

We recommend:

Google’s Reader: http://www.google.com/reader

For help with this see: http://www.google.com/help/faq_reader.html

Ask’s Bloglines: http://www.bloglines.com/

There is a useful tutorial on how to use Bloglines (with kind permission from the University of California Library, Santa Cruz website): http://library.ucsc.edu/science/rss.html

But there are many more – an Internet search on ‘RSS readers’ will provide you with more options.


If you have any questions, or you if you would like further help, please contact Caroline Cooke.