[Web4lib] RSS question

[Jonathan Gorman]

On Fri, 10 Feb 2006, K.G. Schneider wrote:

>> Might be because it's all the same link.  Not sure.  To test that try
>> having different links on the items.  (Ie
>> http://www.fresnolibrary.org/stffpcks/page1.html, etc).
>
> The items having all the same link is kind of counter-RSS-feedy anyway. I
> put the feed into Feed Validator and it checked out, and it looks ok in
> Bloglines, but an entity can validate more or less and still be conceptually
> not quite right. Seems to me that the staff picks page should have a series
> of items which are discrete entries with URLs--
>

Probably the best solution, although I wonder also if it couldn't hurt to 
try using in-page anchors.  (You know, the whole "name").  That wouldn't 
be very maintainable in the long run though.  Of course, it's better than 
just having the index page as it now.  Something else to consider 
Sara for splitting these items up into their own pages is that 
people will keep rss items from RSS feeds around much like some 
people archive their email and might want to reference that link 
later.  If you're not planning on keeping the items described on 
that page forever people might become confused when looking through 
entries on a subject.  (Say they might remember that review of a book and 
attempt to visit it a year later).



Jonathan T. Gorman
Visiting Research Information Specialist
University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana
216 Main Library - MC522
1408 West Gregory Drive
Urbana, IL 61801
Phone: (217) 244-4688



> item>
> <title>Whatever</title>
> <link>http://www.fresnolibrary.org/stffpcks/whatever.html</link>
> <description>...
>
> item>
> <title>Whatever, The Sequel</title>
> <link>http://www.fresnolibrary.org/stffpcks/whateverthesequel.html</link>
> <description>...
>
> If you produced the entries on that page with blogging software, it would do
> that feed for ya, no problemo, and you could tweak it out to your heart's
> content.
>
> The best book I've read on RSS so far is Ben Hammersley's "Developing Feeds
> with RSS and Atom." I have another, fatter book, but it's not that clear.
>
> I keep meaning to post to the XML4Lib list about pimping our feed, but this
> is a reminder that such a list exists and is run by none other than Roy
> Tennant! Though I suspect the overlap with web4lib is pretty heavy.
>
> Karen G. Schneider
> kgs at bluehighways.com
>
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