What is RSS?

RSS feeds allow you to stay up to date with the latest news and resources you want from South Carolina State Library. To subscribe to it, you will need a News Reader or other similar device.

Help! I don't know what a news reader is and still don't know what this is about.

SCSL RSS Feeds

Homepage News

Upcoming Events

Press Releases

News for State Employees

Library Development News

Talking Book Services News

DISCUS News

Local Library News

SC Center for the Book News

What are News Feeds?

News feeds allow you to see when websites have added new content. You can get the latest information in one place, as soon as its published, without having to visit the websites you have taken the feed from.

Feeds are also known as RSS. There is some discussion as to what RSS stands for, but most people go for 'Really Simple Syndication'. In essence, the feeds themselves are just web pages, designed to be read by computers rather than people.

Back to top

How do I start using feeds?

In general, the first thing you need is something called a news reader. This is a piece of software that checks the feeds and lets you read any new articles that have been added. There are many different versions, some of which are accessed using a browser, and some of which are downloadable applications.

Browser-based news readers let you catch up with your RSS feed subscriptions from any computer, whereas downloadable applications let you store them on your main computer, in the same way that you either download your e-mail using Outlook, or keep it on a web-based service like Hotmail.

Once you have chosen a news reader, all you have to do is to decide what content you want to receive. For example, if you would like our latest Press Releases, simply click on the Press Releases feed link and you can then subscribe to the feed various ways, including by dragging the URL of the feed into your news reader or by cutting and pasting the same URL into a new feed in your news reader.

Some browsers, including Firefox, Flock, Opera, Internet Explorer 7 and Safari, automatically check for feeds for you when you visit a website, and display an icon when they find one. This can make subscribing to feeds much easier. For more details on these, please check their websites.

Back to top

How do I get a news reader?

There is a range of different news readers available and new versions are appearing all the time. Different news readers work on different operating systems, so you will need to choose one that will work with your computer.

NEWS READERS

South Carolina State Library is not responsible for the content of external Internet sites.

Back to top