How to Subscribe to an RSS Feed

Have you ever noticed this symbol appearing on the location bar of your browser, on a Web page, or next to a journal article from an online database? RSS is a relatively new technology that allows you to be updated on news and information of your choice. For an example of how this works, imagine that you have done a search in Academic Search Premere for "renewable energy legislation" and had 5 hits for articles published during the past month. By clicking on the RSS icon next to one of the articles, you would be informed every time a new article is published that fits your original search parameters. This is an excellent way to have the most up-to-date articles for use in a research paper. There are many free software products available that allow you to place a News Aggregator, or RSS Reader, on your computer. For information on how to do this, go to: http://www.rss-specifications.com/browser-based-rss.htm. You may also link to RSS feeds through your browser where they will appear next to your bookmarks: http://www.newfangled.com/browser_based_rss_readers. These are referred to as "Live Bookmarks."

 My preference has been to use a Reader offered by Google or Bloglines, the two largest RSS news aggregators on the Web.

There are several advantages in subscribing to an online service. Your RSS feeds may be accessed from any computer that is connected to the internet. Because the RSS software resides on the Web, it doesn't take up disk space on your computer. When you receive new RSS postings, you will be able to skim through your updated list, and when you see something that you wish to investigate further, simply click on the RSS feed to be connected to the full-text article. RSS allows you to screen hundreds of articles in just a few minutes. Most RSS postings are automatically deleted after 30 days. RSS is all about keeping current in whatever field you are studying. If you wish to receive the Table of Contents (TOC) of a particular journal as soon as it is available (usually before the new issue is even published), you may set up an RSS TOC. To practice doing this, go to ScienceDirect, locate a journal title, then click on the feed buttonassociated with that title.