RSS

A Brief Discription:
RSS is a family of feed formats used to publish web content that is often changed, updated or modified. Such content includes things such as blog entries (see the blog post above), news channels or podcasts. An RSS document (also called a "feed", "web feed", or "channel") includes a brief summary or full text content from the site and allows people to stay informed about favorite sites automatically. This saves them the time of engaging with the site manually. RSS content can be read using an aggegator (also known as an RSS reader or feed reader). The user can subscribe to a feed either by clicking a linked RSS icon in a browser that begins the subscription process, or by entering the feed's link directly into the reader. The reader then downloads any new content it finds when the subscribed feeds are searched or scanned. This is done at regular intervals.

Use in a Library
RSS is used in libraries as a part of the libraries' use of blogs. As Fichter and Cervone say in "Technology for the Rest of Us", a number of libraries have begun to "exploit blog [and RSS] software and take advantage of this easy means of bublishig and distributing content." Libraries use them as a means of advertising the events and services that they offer to their patronage, as well as a way to publish and distribute articles, sites and other mediums of interest. They also use RSS for epistemological goals (RSS allows users to be made aware and have access to new information on sites), interactive and community services, and CSCW (See blog entry above).

Expected Social Impact of the Technology
RSS' possible social impact is largely the same as that mentioned in the above blog entry. They have a offer a significan means of information sharing and can have a large influence on making information and knowledge accessible Along with blogs and news sites, RSS can be a great tool for students or researchers in finding information that is of interest or importance to them. As an instrument of blogs, news sites and the like, they may help researchers to think about a subject and organize it in a way that jogs their cognitive processes. This can only encourage free inquiry debate and discussions, especially among those who share interests, and perhaps encounter each other in more than one setting--thus, building an online community focused on a subject.