Beginners Guide to RSS Feeds

A quick introduction to RSS for anyone who hasn't the faintest idea what the whole thing is about. Essentially a feedreader may be set up to provide a personalised webpage that lists all the additions or changes that have been made to webpages indicated by the user, since the last time they checked the reader.

RSS
"RSS is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated web pages such as blog entries, news headlines or podcasts. An RSS document, which is called a "feed," "web feed," or "channel," contains either a summary of content from an associated web site or the full text. RSS makes it possible for people to keep up with their favorite web sites in an automated manner that's easier than checking them manually.
RSS content can be read using software called a "feed reader" or an "aggregator." The user subscribes to a feed by entering the feed's link into the reader or by clicking an RSS icon in a browser that initiates the subscription process. The reader checks the user's subscribed feeds regularly for new content, downloading any updates that it finds." [From Wikipedia]

Feed Readers
These are programs that provide an easy way to keep up to date with web pages you are interested in. They fetch, organise and present chosen feeds by user defined criteria. Below is a list of free feed readers:

Bloglines [WikiPage] [Bloglines Homepage]
Google Reader [WikiPage] [Google Reader Homepage]
NetVibes [WikiPage] [NetVibes Hompage]
NewsIsFree [WikiPage] [NewsIsFree Homepage]

The library at the University of Worchester has an online tutorial on how to set up a Bloglines account here and suggestions for interesting feeds here.


UPDATE (3/9/07)

In her blog about 2.0 issues an e-resources librarian has reviewed various feedreaders and put together a list of RSS related directories here and here.