This section highlights some handy, free web social media widgets and tools.
These help you do all sorts of things, from managing everyday research admin tasks, to aggregating material from several sources into one neat web page.
RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. It refers to files easily read by a computer called XML files that automatically update information.
This information is fetched by a user’s RSS feed reader that converts the files and the latest updates from websites into an easy to read format. An RSS feed takes the headlines, summaries, and update notices, and then links back to articles on your favorite website’s page.
This content is distributed in real time, so that the top results on the RSS feed are always the latest published content for a website. (RSS.com)
Here are six RSS Feed Readers or Aggregate Apps:
Most of our databases allow you to set up search alerts, so that you'll automatically be alerted when new articles are published which match your search, or when a new issue of a key journal is published.
You can usually set up such alerts by email or RSS feed, such as this example from Historical Abstracts.
There are many free tools available which enable you to create professional-looking 'visuals' to help convey your research, such as infographics, flowcharts, timelines and context-sensitive explanation.
A selection of the apps recommended at a recent Apps Swap in the Library. More information can be found here.
