No subject

[Robertson, James]

All,

 

           Bill, Gerry, and others have posted here about various RSS
feeds available for high quality, academic journal content.  Gerry lists
some at http://www.public.iastate.edu/~CYBERSTACKS/eFeeds.htm, for
example.  USask has some at
http://library.usask.ca/ejournals/rss_feeds.php.

 

          Is anyone giving thought to systematically
collecting/cataloging these and making them available via a web services
model?

 

          For example, if I wanted to expose my users to the RSS feed
for the table of contents for the latest issue of Wiley's Journal of
Chemical Technology & Biotechnology (1097-4660), I suppose I could look
it up (http://api.ingentaconnect.com/content/jws/jctb/latest?format=rss)
and enter it as an 856 URL in my MARC record for the journal.

 

          I could even code up a little local web-based RSS
parser/displayer, so they'd read the content instead of the XML code.
Thus, my URL could look like something like this:
http://www.mylibrary.edu/rss-displayer?feed=http://api.ingentaconnect.co
m/content/jws/jctb/latest?format=rss

 

          However, that's just not too sustainable and scalable.  I've
got to find all those RSS's by hand and enter them all by hand.  And so
does Steve at XYZ for his catalog and Mary at ABC for her catalog.  And
on and on.

 

          What about a simple RSS resolver lookup "tool"?  Then, the 856
is something like:  http://www.mylibrary.edu/rss-tool?issn=1097-4660.

 

          The tool queries an open, shared, remote RSS "catalog" via the
ISSN.  If a feed is found, it passes the URL back to the tool (all
behind the scenes, obviously) and the tool now grabs the feed and
displays it to the user.

 

          Our OpenURL resolvers could work with RSS feeds, too, in an
additional services way, too.

 

          Advantages:

 

*         Only one URL to code and maintain in our catalogs (geez, my
catalog could do it automatically and dynamically whenever it found an
ISSN in the MARC).

*         Only one RSS catalog to maintain.  Could be done in an
OCLC-like fashion.  Or, perhaps it's a service someone like Serials
Solutions might consider offering.

*         Loosely coupled.  Lack of ISSN or catalog down or web feed
down doesn't crash the core catalog.

 

          It just seems Sisyphus-like to maintain silos of "dead" lists
of RSS feeds.

 

          Does anyone know of any RSS catalogs available in a
web-services-like way?  That would be the first step.

 

          (Perhaps in a test of the "Lazy Web" concept - see
http://www.openp2p.com/pub/a/p2p/2003/01/07/lazyweb.html -- I've just
described this idea in enough detail to inspire someone to build it.
:-)

 

          Thoughts?

 

                                                          --Jim

 

Jim Robertson

Assistant University Librarian

NJIT (New Jersey Institute of Technology)

323 King Blvd., Newark, NJ  07102-1982

973-596-5798 -- james.c.robertson at njit.edu -- www.library.njit.edu

 




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