Government and RSS (EU). I've been linking on the university's political site to one or two European Union press releases a week -- just a sampling of the content being released via RSS in several languages by this tech-smart government. As I read some of their pieces, I see familiar issues made different by the setting -- just enough different that they help a person think a bit about how we've approached things. See, for example, today's massive To Do list on terrorism -- showing items checked off as well as those remaining to be done.

("Commission Activities in the Fight against Terrorism," 3/12/07 -- watch out, though, for the different day/month date order in the EU posts) [0 & P]

RSS: a simple contrast. Two news listings on our campus. The library's includes an RSS feed, so I republish it automatically in two other campus sites. The university's front page news listing does not include an RSS feed, so I can only republish its content if I a) remember to visit and notice a good item, and b) cut and paste the piece into one of my sites. Nobody has the time for such a thing, of course. The contrast couldn't be simpler. Too bad about the main news from the university sitting there, underused like that. [0 & P]

Library and RSS. Our campus library has been keeping a blog for library-related news and events, and they've published this on its own site as well as in digest form on the library's main page. But I heard today that they've also started an RSS feed for the blog. Someday a campus of our size should be publishing a few dozen RSS feeds, so it's good to see the Schurz Library leading most of the campus with this use of technology and public relations.

The principle is republishing -- good information, created at a high price, should be reused for viewing by a wider audience. We're crazy not to. On top of that, we all come to understand eventually that people need to hear things more than once -- they need to be offered more than one chance to work with information. Politicians know this, teachers know this, and so should those of us who produce campus web publications. It's fiscally, rhetorically, and psychologically sound, yes? [0 & P]

Lab session on Bloglines. In the computer lab today we ran through the basics of taking content from a data base and dropping it into a variety of page formats, which makes RSS possible, which makes news aggregators possible, etc. Everyone set up public Bloglines accounts, loaded up some of their classmates' sites and some others they've found so far, and set up one or two standing searches on Bloglines and Google. I showed quickly how to add html code to the sidebar of a Blogger template, for posting links. The mechanics of it went reasonably well, I think.

And the concepts? One person asked fair questions about spam from free providers, but I don't think I have a different amount of spam before and after launching Bloglines or Blogger. Nevertheless, it was a good question, and so I set up a brand new email account during class, created both a Blogger site and a Bloglines account using that new email, and will keep an eye on it to see whether one or the other of these two companies abuses email. I am expecting that the answer is no, but we'll see. They have too much at stake, don't they?

Finally, the concept of speeding one's work with a news aggregator and standing searches seemed to make sense to everyone, though almost nobody had been reading weblogs this way before. There was some hesitation or uncertainty, which I read this way: not that some students didn't believe that you could get the software to do what it promised to do, but that they might have some trouble picturing themselves, or maybe anyone, scanning a hundred sites each day, performing research as intensive as that, being as aggressive as that about their intellectual lives, having that kind of confidence and independence. That's a hunch, but it seemed to me that it was not just that the software was new, but that they intensity of this way of making an inquiry was pretty new as well. That's how I read it, anyway. [0 & P]

Student RSS by category. Will Richardson points out this piece about class blogging, and I'd like to just add one comment here: Noah Wardrip-Fruin's helpful concept of aggregating students' posts by category, as a way of speeding access to different aspects of their work. That's a good idea. [0 & P]

NPR & RSS. I see from Dave Winer that National Public Radio has released RSS feeds of several kinds of content as well as links to feeds from some of the bigger affiliates. They give permission for posting their content, with appropriate credit, on another site.

I'd like to see one or more classes build a news aggregator site for the campus -- perhaps working with the student paper? I'll give the editor a ring and report back. [0 & P]

Michael Moore the blogger. Yesterday's news was that Michael Moore has a weblog, but where is the RSS? Who's advising him about tech matters and creating this sharp looking site and still leaving off the syndication? Still, it's good to see the voter registration links he provides. [0 & P]

RSS feeds for TIME. Dave Winer points out the new RSS feeds from Time magazine. [0 & P]

Utah Legislature committee RSS feeds. Jenny Levine points out the bill and committee feeds provided by the Utah Legislature -- very cool. You can subscribe to any bill or any committee, though the committee page is easier to figure out. [0 & P]

Time's RSS. Dave Winer points out the RSS feeds at Time. [0 & P]