RSS Help

Table of Contents

1. What is RSS?
2. How Do I Read RSS Files?
3. How is Queen's University and the School of Medicine Using RSS?

1. What is RSS?
   RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary (depending on who you are talking to), and over the past few years, RSS has changed the way information is being delivered to people via the Internet.
   
   How much time do you spend each day going to the same set of websites and then finding and reading any new content that is there? Or if you don't do this, how much time do you spend each day going through every page of your newspaper or magazine, hunting for articles that interest you?  If the answer to that question is some or a lot, RSS may be for you!
   
   RSS allows users to quickly and easily stay up to date by frequently retrieving summaries of dynamic content to which you are subscribed. Subscribing is easy, often it is just a matter of clicking a link to an RSS file, or adding it the URL (or address) to your RSS Reader (often referred to as an RSS aggregator). 
2. How Do I Read RSS Files?
   RSS files (often referred to as RSS feeds) are read by RSS aggregators. There are a number of RSS Aggregators available for which ever operating system you may use (Mac, Linux, Windows, etc). Many pieces of software you may already have on your computer can allow you to read RSS feeds; software like Firefox, and Thunderbird, Apple's Safari web-browser and more. There are also many other desktop applications like AmphetaDesk, FeedReader and NewsGator that are available. Google Reader a free web-based RSS reader that is very easy to use..  A simple Google Search turns up thousands of results, so pick your poison. Personally, I prefer using Mozilla's Thunderbird because I use it as my primary e-mail client, which also lends itself nicely as an RSS aggregator.
   
3. How is Queen's University and the School of Medicine Using RSS?
   Both Queen's and the School of Medicine have several RSS feeds and more feeds are continually being added.
   
   Directory of Queen's RSS feeds
   
   School of Medicine RSS feeds:
   

   • School of Medicine
   • MEdTech
   • Bracken Health Sciences Library

   There are also literally millions of other RSS feeds all over the Internet, from major global news sources like CBC, CNN, and BBC as well as medicine specific ones, such as Insider Medicine.