Last year, the Compendium switched formats from an email newsletter to a blog. While there are advantages to each format, several of my colleagues have mentioned that they feel disconnected from the Compendium now that it doesn’t automatically appear in their inbox. Subscribing to an RSS feed is an excellent way to keep up with new Compendium content. You can subscribe to the whole Compendium or select a category like, say…PA Forward!
For those unfamiliar with RSS feeds, RSS stands for “Real Simple Syndication” or “Rich Site Summary.” RSS feeds provide a quick way for you to track when one of your favorite sites has updated its content. Subscribing to an RSS feed is simple. Actually, subscribing is probably easier that creating a “How to Subscribe to RSS Feeds” tutorial because there are many different options and the process is slightly different for each one. However, the quickest, easiest option is to subscribe to and view the feeds from within your favorite web browser. The Compendium website has a brief overview with links to directions for adding feeds with Firefox, Chrome, and Explorer at http://compendium.ocl-pa.org/subscribing-to-rss-feeds/.
And, just to demonstrate how easy it is, here are the steps to do it using Firefox’s Live Bookmarks feature (https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/live-bookmarks). Live Bookmarks are just like regular bookmarks except that you can click on them to see a list of links to recently added content.
Step 1: Open Firefox and go to http://compendium.ocl-pa.org/
Step 2: Click on the Bookmarks icon in the toolbar.
Step 3: Select “Subscribe to this Page” from the dropdown menu.
Step 4: A new page will open in the browser. Click on “Subscribe Now.”
Step 5: To see your new bookmark, just click on the “Bookmarks” icon. 
The Live Bookmark will have the RSS symbol beside it. Clicking on the bookmark will open a list of links to recent content which will be automatically updated every hour.
Step 6: Read about all the great things happening in PA libraries!
Easy, right? You can also subscribe by category. Go to the Compendium site, scroll down to where it says “Subscribe by Category” on the right, and select from the list.
These days there are so many ways to get information and all of us have different comfort levels and personal preferences when it comes to managing the daily information deluge. RSS feeds offer one way to make sure you keep up-to-date on what’s being added to the Compendium.