Going Retro with RSS

Posted by Alison Aldrich on February 10th, 2009 Posted in: Technology

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RSS (Really Simple Syndication) makes it possible to pick up dynamic content on the web and move it to a place that makes sense for you. In a previous post, I described how to use an RSS feed reader to track updates to blogs and websites. Feed readers are just one way to use RSS feeds. RSS can also help with such “retro” tasks as assembling print newsletters, setting up e-mail alerts, and making phone calls. Intrigued? Read on.

RSS to PDF
Tabbloid and FeedJournal are two free services that generate printable PDF newsletters from RSS feeds or lists of feeds. You might use an RSS to PDF service to create a print alternative for your organization’s blog, or to produce highly individualized newspapers for the physicians, researchers, and others who frequent your library.

Here is a nice comparison of the features of Tabbloid and FeedJournal.

Here are the most recent Dragonfly posts as a Tabbloid and as a FeedJournal.

RSS to e-mail
So you’ve set up an account with Google Reader or Bloglines. You’ve subscribed to Dragonfly, PubMed New & Noteworthy, the Krafty Librarian, and a few Tables of Contents, but you have trouble remembering to check your feeds. You hear yourself saying things like “it just doesn’t fit into my workflow!” Good news! If e-mail is your preference, you can take those same RSS feeds and set up e-mail alerts for yourself.

Our friends at Samaritan Health Services in Oregon used RSS feeds to create MedGrab, a one-stop shop for-mail alerts to medical journal tables of contents. MedGrab is primarily intended for use by SHS staff, but anyone can use MedGrab to sign up for e-mail alerts for the listed journals.

For details of how MedGrab came to be and how you can create a similar service for your library, see “How to Create a Simple Online Electronic Table of Contents Delivery Service: Medgrab as a Case Study,” an article by Dorothy O’Brien, Roger Davis, and Hope Leman, published last year in Volume 8, Issue 1, pages 38-52 of the Journal of Hospital Librarianship.

Podcasts to your phone

Podlinez takes the RSS feed for a podcast and assigns a phone number to it. This makes it possible to listen to podcasts away from your computer even if you do not own an mp3 player. This is a good way to pass the time when you find yourself unexpectedly waiting somewhere. It is also a great way to use those extra cell phone minutes!

Yesterday, I used Podlinez to generate a phone number for the NIH Research Radio podcast. Listen on your phone by calling the number below.

To find other podcasts with phone numbers, or to create your own podcast over the phone, go to phonecasting.com.