Guide to Using RSS Feeds
Example 1: Subscibing to a Journal's Table of Contents
RSS is a technology that allows users to subscribe to "feeds" in order to keep up with news from websites (including blogs) without having to actually visit the website every day or having one's inbox cluttered with constant updates.
In order to subscribe to an RSS feed, you need to use an RSS reader. The Firefox browser has an RSS reader already installed. Another popular choice is Google Reader.
If, for instance, you wanted to subscribe to the Nature table of contents feed, you would go to the Nature website and click on the "Live newsfeeds" link on the right side.
Notice the symbol next to the link. This is the symbol for an RSS feed.
Now click on the link to "Receive Nature's current issue table of contents." At this point you will see the feed itself:
Firefox now gives you the opportunity to subscribe to the feed, using either Firefox's "Live Bookmarks" application or another application of your choice. If you choose "Live Bookmarks" and click "Subscribe Now," and then click "Add" in the dialog box, Firefox will add a bookmark for Nature to your bookmarks menu, but this bookmark will always contain the most recent table of contents items:
Example 2: Subscribing to a Database Search
Not only can one subscribe to a table of contents via RSS—one can subscribe to a search. If I were conducting ongoing research on parasitic flowering plants, I might construct a search in Biological Abstracts as follows:
To create a feed from this search, click on the orange RSS icon.
Clicking on the "Syndication Feed" link takes you to the feed itself:
From this point, you can proceed as in the previous example and add the search to your Live Bookmarks.
One problem with Live Bookmarks is that they live on a particular machine. If you would like to be able to get to your RSS feeds from anywhere, you might try using Google Reader. If you already have a Google account (including gmail), you already have a Reader account. Otherwise, you will need to create an account with Google. From the dropdown menu at the top of the screen, choose "Google" and click "Subscribe Now."
Now click "Add to Google Reader."
You will be transported to your Google Reader page, where you will see your complete selection of feeds on the left and the most recent contents of a selected feed on the right.
Example 3: Subscribing to a Blog
There is a host of interesting academic bloggers out there. Subscribing to their blogs is very easy. Let's say you want to subscribe to Daniel Naish's Tetrapod Zoology blog:
Firefox can usually figure out that the thing you are looking at has an RSS feed. When it does so, it will display the RSS symbol in the address bar. When you click on the RSS symbol, you will see a dropdown menu asking what protocol (RSS or a similar protocol called "Atom"—it usually doesn't matter which you choose) you would like to use to subscribe and whether you want to use Live Bookmarks or another service.
If you choose "Subscribe to RSS 2.0," you will see the now familiar subscription screen and can proceed as in the preceding examples.
