Thursday, March 29, 2012

How RSS feeds can help library students


What is an RSS feed?

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. RSS feeds provide a title and short summary of any new article on a website that you subscribe to- job websites, news websites, blogs, and a number of other types of websites. You can set up an RSS feed on your desktop, phone, or tablet to receive updates on multiple sites at once, without having to visit each site individually. RSS feeds are perfect time savers for busy students who want to stay current on job and LIS information.

How can it help you as a library science student?

RSS feeds can help library science students by creating a stream of new job postings from a variety of websites. For example, if you are interested in law libraries on the East Coast, you can customize your RSS feed to get updates from law library job posting websites as well as any local East Coast library job websites to get the largest amount of specific job postings as possible.

You can also use RSS feeds to stay up to date on library science news. This is particularly important for students who are job searching, becuase you want to be knowledgable about current professional news. There are many popular, interesting library science blogs by students and professionals which you can subscribe to in order to stay up to date.

How to set up your own RSS feed:

There are many different RSS feed providers. One of the most popular providers is Google Reader, which allows you to search for feeds, subscribe to them, and then create personal folders to sort your feeds. If you cannot find the website that you are thinking of in the search function, you can often find an RSS feed icon on individual websites, posted with other social media icons.

A few useful feeds:

RSS job websites:

ALA JobList: http://joblist.ala.org/index.cfm
LIBGig: http://publicboard.libgig.com/
Library Jobline: http://www.libraryjobline.org/
SLA Philadelphia Chapter: http://sla-phl.org/jobs/
NJSLA: http://sla-divisions.typepad.com/njslajobs/
Archives Gig: http://archivesgig.livejournal.com/

RSS library blogs

Hack Library School: http://hacklibschool.wordpress.com/
I Need a Library Job: http://inalj.com/
Hiring Librarians: http://hiringlibrarians.com/
Open Cover Letter: http://opencoverletters.com/
Information Space: http://infospace.ischool.syr.edu/
Information Tyranosaur: http://andyburkhardt.com/

Please comment other favorite LIS job or blog feeds below!



1 comment:

  1. You can also get an RSS feed of a Craigslist search, which is helpful for finding local library job listings, particularly in non-library organizations.
    Thanks for linking to my site!

    ReplyDelete