RSS Feeds : RSS Master.

RSSMaster 1.0 - "RSSMaster is a .NET class library which helps you generate RSS feeds for your web site with a few lines of code. It supports both 0.91 (the most popular) and 2.0 (the newest) versions of RSS. RSSMaster is fully customizable and totally FREE."

...or as Jenny always says, you can use blogging tools like MT or Radio and get an automatic RSS feed thrown in...RSS Master is good for non-blogging sites that want to provide RSS Feeds.

[Library Stuff]  1:29:02 PM   [Feedback ]  

Metadata : RDF Site Summary (RSS). To web people, metadata might seem to be the equivalent of calculus to a high school senior. That is, what's often heard when discussing the topic, is "when will I ever be able to use this in the real world".

That is further echoed in the use of RDF, which is seen as one of the most obfuscated metadata standards out there. But in recent months it has become more and more useful. Suddenly this stuff is able to be used by the Joe 6-Pack web user.

There have been several interesting announcements in the last few weeks about content providers and publishers using RDF Site Summary (RSS). RSS is a variation on the RDF theme. It allows content providers (like me) to expose and syndicate their content for inclusion in other web sites, databases, instant messaging software, and many other useful tools. For example, I syndicate news feeds from sources such as the Washington Post into my instant messaging software.

First came the announcement in July that Elsevier would expose their PRISM metadata in an RSS compliant manner. In doing so, libraries and end users could access tables of contents for Elsevier journals in their favorite tools.

It's evident that other publishers are catching on. Earlier in the week, a primer was released to help publishers gain a better understanding of RSS. And now there's an announcement from NISO about their publication, Metadata Demystified: A Guide for Publishers. Let's hope they start using it in a major way. This publication addresses the ONIX standard, which book publishers are using to translate similar types of information. LC is using ONIX in conjunction with the 856 MARC field to provide tables of contents for new books.

So, you might be asking again, how can you use this in the real world? Well, imagine being able to display the current issue's TOC next to the PULinks logo in the online catalog, or having the RSS feed the EJournals page automatically without having to maintain a separate database or a kludged catalog record! That's the power of XML -- make the content providers do some of the work for you! [inSilico - A Princeton University Library metadata and digital library blog]

  1:28:09 PM   [Feedback ]  

Metadata : Welcome to inSilico. Hi all,

For those of you that were able to attend the LETC presentation on "What is Metadata (and What Does the Metadata Librarian Do)?", thanks for coming out. If you have any questions, please contact me. I'll be glad to help.

For those that were not able to attend, we actually captured it on video. I'm going to have the tape digitized and posted in the next few days.

This site will allow everyone to create an account and, therefore, be able to post content, questions, etc. (Although, please give me a few days before creating an account. It's based on e-mail delivery, and I'd rather sign you up manually. If you've already tried to get an account, let me know so I can clear out the queue.) The site is moderated and requires my approval before content is posted, but only as a measure to keep non-Princetonians from posting. Please visit the forum page, and feel free to participate in the metadata discussions.

As a word of warning, please use an up-to-date browser like IE5, IE6, Netscape 6, Netscape 7, Mozilla, Safari, etc. The design relies heavily on stylesheets, which Netscape and IE versions 3-4 do not support.

Because keeping up with web sites can be a hassle, if you have the means on your machine, you can actually "syndicate" or "harvest" the news headlines into a news reader. This means you can get news headlines on your desktop, and you only have to click the headline if you feel like reading more. No web navigation is therefore required. Some instant messaging software has this capability, and other means exist as well. If you have this kind of software and need help setting it up, let me know. For all you technocrats who already know how to do this, here's the XML. [inSilico - A Princeton University Library metadata and digital library blog]  1:26:30 PM   [Feedback ]