Library Corner: Teach Your Students to Use RSS as an Academic Research Tool

by Jackie Sipes, Educational Services, Libraries

RSS, or Really Simple Syndication, is a technology that delivers content from the web in a standardized format. New content comes directly to your RSS reader when it’s posted, so you do not have to visit individual sites. You may use RSS to keep track of blogs, news sources, podcasts, and other sites with frequently updated content; however, RSS can also be used as an academic research tool. As you’re searching library databases, you can set up journal and search alerts to conveniently track the latest scholarly articles related to your field or topic, much the same way you receive content from your favorite websites. Journal alerts allow you to receive notifications of new articles in specific publications. Search alerts let you save database searches and rerun them automatically. Titles of articles matching your alert criteria are delivered to your RSS reader; then, to find the full articles, use the E-Journal Finder.

To get started with RSS, sign up for a Google Reader account.

To start adding feeds from the web, look for the RSS icon or “subscribe” link on any site.

To add journal and search alert feeds from library databases, follow the instructions here.