Subject Blogs
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News on Information Resources
A number of blogs (also called Web logs or online journals) are maintained by the Collection Development Department to help keep you current with information resources and relevant news in the respective disciplines:
To view news postings as Web pages, click on the hyperlink for the desired topic. Alternatively, you can have the news delivered to you as news feed when it becomes available. To do this, you will need to:
a. Install a news aggregator or reader.
b. Subscribe to the blog (also called "adding feeds") desired by right clicking on its xml icon, and copying and pasting the shortcut to your reader.
Click here to find out more about how to install readers and add feeds. Further information about blogs in general can be found on our FAQ page on blogs.
Install readers and add feeds
Installing an RSS Reader
Below are the installation and set up procedures for a standalone desktop RSS reader. This is just one example and you can find many more free and fee-based readers at:
Installation
Go to, e.g. RSS Reader or Active Web Reader's web site and follow the instructions to download the reader.
When the reader is launched for the first time, you will see a toolbar and two window panes that look like the layout of Microsoft Outlook. The left pane typically displays your subscribed RSS feeds or channels, which can be categorized into folders. The right pane shows a list of articles within a selected channel. The article content will be displayed in this pane once you click on the link.
To alert readers to new postings, a small dialog or pop-up window will be displayed over the Windows Taskbar informing you of the channel, the title, and the URL of the posting.
Adding feeds / channels
Every reader comes preloaded with a list of feeds or channels from various sites, such as BBC, New York Times, and Yahoo. You may want to re-organize them or add your own. To add a feed:
1. Look in the Web site of interest for any of these buttons: 
, 
, 
.
2. Right-click on the button, then choose "Copy Shortcut".
3. Go back to your news reader, select the category where you want to place the feed, and then click on "New".
4. Paste the URL (if not automatically inserted) and enter other details for the feed. Press the OK button to add the feed.
Blogs: FAQ
A blog, a short form for web log or weblog, is an online journal with periodic postings by an individual or a group of individuals. A blog can be anything, such as opinions, news, resources and useful links.
A blog can be read just like a Web site but you can also have updated content delivered to you as news feed by using a RSS reader. RSS is an acronym for "Really Simple Syndication" or "Rich Site Summary," a way for Web sites to summarize their content and make it available to RSS readers as it is posted to a site.
With an RSS reader or aggregator, you subscribe to the RSS feeds for the sites you would normally surf to on the Web and read. When the sites have new content, your reader will receive the corresponding postings also. RSS makes Web reading more efficient as postings from multiple sites can be read through a single application, and there is no need to surf the Web to check the sites one at a time for updated content.
There are different types of RSS readers for different needs. For example: Web-based vs desktop aggregators, and standalone vs plug-in readers. The following sites provide listings of free and fee-based readers.
Look for one of these buttons: , , . All of them refer to the same thing, a 'feed' which is a wrapper for pieces of sequentially-updated content repackaged for use in an RSS reader.
The button allows you to add or "bookmark" the blog in your reader. Click here to find out more about how to install readers and add feeds.
Every reader includes a built-in list of sites, but you can also find more news feeds by going to the following places:
The following is a sampling of Web sites that provide further information on these two topics:
