rss article

A good & lenghty article called What is RSS and how can it serve libraries? [pdf]. I was particularly interested in the bit about RSS augmenting reference services:

The importance of search engines could not be underestimated, especially for reference librarians and their potential clients. XmlHub (http://www.xmlhub.com), an Open Directory custom RSS-feed generator, recently unveiled two very interesting tools, destined to have an impact.

The first generates a customized RSS feed of Open Directory (http://dmoz.org) search results for any search term entered. The second generates a customized RSS feed for any Open Directory category. These tools make it possibly to alert patrons to new resources being added to Open Directory in the areas of their particular interests.

This same methodology could be used to generate customized RSS feeds for other databases, including libraries’ OPACs, bibliographic and full-text databases, and web directories. [p.13]

[via Stuff]