RSS News Feeds
If you frequently check web sites or "blogs" to get information or gather breaking news in your field of interest, RSS may be for you.
RSS, known as Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication, is a new trend in syndicated Internet information delivery. The web links to "RSS feeds", also known as syndicated news feeds, are often denoted by small orange buttons on web pages that read "XML" or "RSS". You may also see this symbol 
, which has been adopted as a new standard by many sites. XML may be used because XML is the labeling language used to build the feeds.
- When you click on one of these icons, if you have an old browser version, you may see the raw "code view" of an RSS feed. This is like looking at the HTML code of a web page. Newer browsers will understand the code and display the text from the code in a legible manner, as well as offering ways within the browser of "subscribing" to the feed.
- The idea with RSS is that you do not have to visit the web site you're interested in. Rather, information from that web site is gathered automatically by your web browser or other application. Having all of your information in a single organizing interface can save time compared to visiting many individual web sites.
- The web address (URL) of a RSS feed is important. You can copy the URL and paste it into many types of home pages, such as Yahoo (My Yahoo), Google (Google Personalized Home), Netvibes, Bloglines, Feedster, and more.
- Many journal publishers are now offering their site updates as RSS feeds. RSS feeds are essentially headlines accompanied by brief summaries and links to the complete text of the items. Most news web sites and almost all web logs ("blogs") offer RSS feeds.
- NIH funding opportunities are now available in RSS format. PubMed searches can be saved as RSS feeds.
- Here is the Health Sciences Library's RSS news feed. You can use the options offered by your web browser, or simply paste this url- http://hsclibrary.uchsc.edu/news/wp-rss2.php ) -into the RSS news reader or home page of your choice to subscribe to this news feed. Our Newsletter also features an RSS feed.