Adventures in Radio UserLand

Lincoln Cushing, UC Berkeley Institute of Industrial

Relations Library

Librarians use technology to better reach their patrons

From your desktop to the Web

Public Web(“Cloud”)

RSS newssources

Localsources

Yourcomputer

UserLand Server

RSS

RSS (Rich Site Summary, or also known as "Really Simple Syndication,") is a lightweight XML (eXtensible Markup Language) format designed for sharing Web content. An RSS file encodes data (such as a list of headlines, or article titles, or events) so it can be easily used by another program called a "news aggregator" or "news reader.“

These programs allow end users to read headlines or events from dozens or hundreds of aggregated news sites at one time. It is a "pull" rather than a "push" technology.

RSS and XMLRSS defines an XML grammar (a set of HTML-like tags) for sharing news. Each RSS text file contains both static information about your site, plus dynamic information about your new stories, all surrounded by matching start and end tags. Each story is defined by an <item> tag, which contains a headline TITLE, URL, and DESCRIPTION.

Public homepage

Title and sourceDescription

Internal navigation (“Categories”) News items Stories

Archive

External links

Lincoln’s public UserLand page as displayed on his own desktop

Lincoln’s “working” homepage on desktop

Features of the working homepage

Publishing tool links

Composing and editing screen

RadioLand links

Categories selector

Posting a news item

Steps:1. Enter content2. Edit, add local information3. Assign to category4. Post

•Compose manually-just type in text•Cut-and-paste from other sources•Post from RSS news feed

Posting an RSS-fed itemStep 1: look through aggregator, select item

Radio's news aggregator automatically reads news feeds you're subscribed to and posts the headlines to a single page.

News item

Item as shown on NYT link“printer-friendly” version(better for cutting and pasting)

Step 2: Edit posted news items

Step 3: Add local data

Final news item as posted

Commentaries (or Stories)

The title of each story is a link to the story. Also listed is the date the story was created.

Choices for Blog software

Blogger

Radio UserLand

Movable Type

$40 a year, includes 40 mb server spaceFiles reside on your machine, upstream to hosting serverAllows posting by e-mailAllows posting picturesReceives and broadcasts RSS news feeds

Free serviceWeb-based text entryNo RSS capabilities

Free to individuals and nonprofitsLess user-friendly for novices – requires some programming skills (Perl-based)XML-based templatesNo RSS capabilities

Plug-ins and Desktop Clients

Plug-insThemeTool by evectors that lets you easily edit your Radio based weblog's theme using your favorite WYSIWYG html editor, including Macromedia Dreamweaver or Adobe GoLive. RssDistiller extracts RSS feeds from most html pages, letting you be always updated without leaving your personal news aggregator.A desktop client is an application that resides on your computer and allows you to view and send email. Radioland’s news2mail automatically sends email messages containing the most recent stories from the channels you've subscribed to. Messages can be sent in either or both of two formats, Batch or Individual.

Blogs and library outreach

Blogs can be an easy way to harvest and publish news content relevant to your patron community.

Blogs allow for painless Web-posting of timely commentary and information.

Blogs can help build community through comment dialogue and persistent news archiving.

End of presentationLincoln Cushing