Using RSS to Improve Access to new State Publications across Montana

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Using RSS to Improve Access to new State
Publications across Montana
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How RSS Looks in Montana

• 1) the old method link
• 2) the RSS method link
• 3) the state of the art with IE7.0 or Mozilla 2.0
• 4) my bloglines
• 5) blogs

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Meet an RSS userMr. Jim Kammerer!
How many RSS users are in this room right now?
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RSS Use Nationally

• The ClickZ Network, Aug 2, 2005, Sean Michael
  Kerner
• Only two percent of adults in North Amerca say
  they use RSS
• 5 of teens use RSS
• They average almost double online time per week
  as their non-RSS counterparts
• More likely to have broadband
• Use broadband
• Consider themselves tech optimists.

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Other usage numbers

• According to TechNewsWorld 34.4 of the Chinese
  internet population already uses RSS. (April 18,
  2006)
• http//rssdiary.marketingstudies.net/content/344_p
  ercent_of_chineese_internet_users_use_rss.php
• 40 of marketers are definitely planning on
  investing in adding RSS feeds to their marketing
  mix in 2006, while 19 plan to spend more than a
  year out.
• http//rssdiary.marketingstudies.net/content/rss_b
  ecoming_a_hit_with_marketers.phpmore

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(No Transcript)
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Other numbers (2005)

• Warning - this is reality check blog post...
• Nielsen/NetRatings today published the results of
  a study on RSS. It indicates that only one in ten
  blog readers use RSS. Five percent are on
  software-based news aggregators and more than six
  percent use web-based newsreaders to monitor RSS
  feeds from blogs, the study revealed. This quote,
  however, is the kicker...
• The majority of respondents to the survey were
  less familiar with RSS feeds. Among the other
  respondents, 23 percent understood RSS but did
  not use it, while 66 percent either did not
  understand the technology or had never heard of
  it. It sounds to me like Microsoft has the
  right idea. Someone needs to figure out how to
  convey that the benefits of RSS are worth
  overcoming the learning curve. This is not
  impossible and there is precedent. When it
  launched, eBay was pretty damn complicated too.
  Nevertheless, people took the time to learn how
  to use the service because they understood what
  the benefits were. No one's cracked the same code
  yet on RSS, but someone will. There's too much at
  stake for players like Yahoo, Google, Microsoft,
  Mozilla, IAC/Bloglines, Newsgator and Apple.
• http//www.micropersuasion.com/2005/08/rss_underst
  andi.html

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More Numbers

• Table 1 Use of RSS Feeds, June 2005
• Survey Response Percent of
  Respondents
• I use feed aggregation software to monitor RSS
  feeds for blogs 4.9
• I use a feed aggregating Web site to monitor RSS
  feeds for blogs 6.4
• Ive heard of RSS and know what it does but don't
  use RSS feeds 23.0
• I've heard of RSS but don't know what it does
  15.7
• I've never heard of RSS before today 50.0
• Source Nielsen//NetRatings
• Understanding the Blogosphere survey, August 2005
  Note 1,000 online U.S. MegaPanelists responded
  to the survey fielded in June 2005

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How RSS is Used
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RSS Usage at State Library
Summary Reports
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How We Do It
SQL Server DTS package pulls in pipe delimited
files weekly
Montana Shared Catalog Sirsi Dynex Oracle Database
Web Site
Query using Sirsi Dynex API scheduled weekly
produces pipe delimited files of new books by
library
Web interface draws new state publication data as
requested for any shared catalog library
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Pseudo Code (Details)

• Sirsi application person
• 1. create a "book list" report in Workflows.
• 2. locate the "book list" number in the policies
  file.  this is a "BLST" policy.
• 3. issue this (or something very similar to
  this) "seltool" command to extract the
  information
• sirsiecho B219LIST seltext -oCS 2gt null
  selcatalog -iC -e245,035,100,260,300,650,710,856
  -oeS 2gt null sort 2gt null gtgt/s/sirsi/Unicorn/F
  TP/RSS.txt
• 4. ftp the resulting "pipe delimited" file to our
  FTP site.
• 5. run a DTS (or now i think it is called SIS)
  job to import the pipe delimited data into a SQL
  data table.
• Webmaster
• 6. run the ASP page against the data table to
  display the information as an RSS feed.

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Code

• Set objConn Server.CreateObject("ADODB.Connectio
  n")
• objConn.Open "SERVERMSLHLNB08SQL.state.mt.ads\SQL
  001DATABASEmsl2008UIDMSLReadPWDMSLRead!DRIV
  ERSQL ServerAPPRSSfromSQL"
• ' Setup a RecordSet to store the results from our
  SQL Query.
• Set artRec Server.CreateObject("ADODB.Recordset"
  )
• set artRec objConn.execute("SELECT FROM
  dbo.RSSLookup WHERE LibraryName '" Library
  "' ORDER BY SortOrder")
• ' response.write Request("lname")
• ' Loop through the recordset to retrieve our rows
  of data.
• while CheckRS(artRec)
• bh SafeOut(artRec("BreakdownHeading"))
• hk SafeOut(artRec("Hook"))
• if bh "" then bh "New Book List"
• response.write "ltimg src'images/xml.jpg'
  width'21' height'10' alt'XML' border'0'
  valign'middle' /gtnbsplta href'http//test.msl.m
  t.gov/rss_feeds/feeddisplay.asp?hk"
  server.urlencode(hk) "Library"
  server.urlencode(Library " - " bh) "'gt"
  bh "lt/agtltbr /gt"
• artRec.movenext
• wend