Introduction

The MCR now offers an RSS news feed. The URL of the news feed is: http://nnlm.gov/mcr/news_blog/?feed=rss2. You can set up your e-mail program or browser to receive the feed, or use a separate feed reader program.

What is an RSS Feed or News Feed?

RSS (Real Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary) feeds, also called news feeds, provide a method for web content providers to offer news headlines with links to the full article. Think of an RSS feed or news feed as an online newspaper, in which news headlines and the links to the full article are delivered to your computer desktop on a periodic basis. News feed subscriptions are a wonderful way to keep up with topics that interest you.

You can access the new headlines using popular e-mail programs like Thunderbird, a standalone news reader, or Firefox's Live Bookmarks feature (see below). All of these methods will allow you to consolidate all of your news sources into one place. In addition to news feeds offered by web content providers, most blogs (also called web logs) offer their content using as RSS feeds.

Setting up Thunderbird E-mail to Subscribe to the News Feed

Receiving individual articles from the news feed directly in your e-mail program is a convenient way to read news feeds. The free e-mail program Thunderbird allows you to do this. View instructions here.

Using Live Bookmarks in Firefox

Another convenient ways to keep up the RML news (as well as other news feeds of interest) is to use the Live Bookmarks feature in Firefox. (This feature will be added to the next version of Internet Explorer, due this summer). If you are a Firefox user, follow these steps to add the RML News to your bookmarks:

• Click on the icon in the right hand corner of the Firefox browser. The MCR site has the icon on the home page, the news page, and this page, so if you are using Firefox you should see it now!
• Select "Subscribe to RSS..."
• The Add Bookmark dialog window will appear.
• You can choose to add the RML News Feed to any folder you would like in your bookmarks. For convenience, you may wish to choose the "Bookmarks Toolbar Folder" so that the RML News will appear right on your Firefox toolbar.
• Click OK. You should see the RML News on your toolbar. Click on the button to see the list of the latest news headlines. Choose any headline and you'll be taken directly to the relevant link.

For more information about Live Bookmarks, see the Firefox site. If you need help with this feature, please do not hesitate to contact Sharon Dennis at sdennis@lib.med.utah.edu.

Other Ways to Subscribe to News Feeds

To read news without downloading a separate piece of software, try Bloglines. If you prefer to use a separate piece of software, take a look at CNet's reviews of free and low-cost news readers.

To add the MCR news feed to your news reader, simply click on the orange XML icon above (this is a standard icon used throughout the Web to indicate a news feed). Copy the link into your favorite news reader and you will be able to receive updated MCR news as it becomes available!