readings - week 4

Most people will probably find it amusing that I've had an imac for almost 4 years with Safari 2.0 and I had no idea what RSS was until I took this course. I am pleasantly surprised after reading this week's articles and looking up RSS for Macs that my computer has a built in RSS aggregator with up to date news from the Washington Post and the New York Times just a click away. My husband is going to be so happy that he can get sports scores so easily. Which actually leads into my main thoughts on RSS that I took from the readings - RSS is great for information that has a greater value the more current it is. Most of the research I do requires currency, but equally important and sometimes more so is relevance and authority. RSS might assist with routine searches for information like information on a law firm's client (as long as the client isn't Walmart or some other huge company that has 30 news items a day published about it). However, librarians and information professionals usually get unique research requests or are looking for specific information which requires complicated searches that aren't possible using RSS. I can also see how database vendors like Factiva won't provide an RSS feed because they may not own the original copyright and therefore need to ensure that they control access to their database and because they already have enough subscibers especially for business and corporate information. Government websites on the other hand should provide an RSS feed because it is important that the public gets information on changes to laws, regulations and procedures quickly and in any manner possible that allows for wide dissemination.