OPML Packages & Reading Lists
I can't remember when exactly it was that I first heard about OPML. But over time a relatively humble idea occurred to me: librarians and other educators could compile OPML "Packages" of academic/scholarly content for distribution to our users. "Want to subscribe to an authoritative set of feeds on the topic of Public Health? Just download our Public Health OPML file and import it into your aggregator."
Then a colleague asked me if I had read any of Dave Winer's posts on "Reading Lists." -Nope. So he clued me into Winer's idea. Rather than explaining it, here it is, straight from the horse's mouth:
Reading lists are OPML documents that point to RSS feeds, like most of the OPML documents you find, but instead of subscribing to each feed in the document, the reader or aggregator subscribes to the OPML document itself. When the author of the OPML document adds a feed, the aggregator automatically checks that feed in its next scan, and (key point) when a feed is removed, the aggregator no longer checks that feed. The editor of the OPML file can update all the subscribers by updating the OPML file. Think of it as sort of a mutual fund for subscriptions.
-Dave Winer
As a librarian, I guess I should be happy with the term "Reading List," but I wonder if that title isn't a little bit misleading in cases where feeds are being generated from search queries or represent updates to class schedules, etc. Still, I think Winer's idea is pretty ingenious, much more so than static "packages" of content. My gut feeling is that this is the direction feeds will inevitably go. And, in the end, I care less about the name and more about the great functionality this will bring us.
On the other hand, his Reading Lists concept may take some time to catch on and I'd like to start experimenting with targeted packages sooner rather than later.
Add David Walker's RSS Creator and a variety of other feed services (ex our other Library Feeds) - and we are getting closer to some pretty exciting research tools.
Comments
Sounds like a ripe idea. A way for librarians to "push" information to their users and departmental/lisison connections.
I will definitely check it out as part of a package that I would like to deliver to my contacts.
Posted by: Cindy Gruwell | January 26, 2006 4:22 AM