If you have completed Things 5 & 6 and are keen to explore further you might want to take a look at some of the additional features of Google Reader listed below:

Item options

At the bottom of every item in your reader you will see a toolbar of options which allow you to highlight and share the item. You can

• add a star to mark an item as a favourite


• share an item on your shared items page or email it to a friend


• mark an item as unread to indicate you want to return to it later


• add a tag to an item to group it with other items on the same topic

Manage subscriptions
Create folders to group your feeds into categories e.g. work, home

• Click 'Manage subscriptions' at the bottom of the left-hand navigation panel


• On the Subscriptions tab use the 'Change folders' drop-down menu to create new folders and add your feeds to them.

Change the settings on your shared items page
When you sign up for Google Reader a shared items page is automatically created. You can use this to share items with your friends or make it completely public.

• Click 'Shared items' in the left-hand navigation panel


• From the content that loads in the main section of the page click the 'Sharing settings' link


• On the settings page you can choose whether to make your shared items public or private, set who can comment on your shared items and customise your shared items page.

Your next step is to locate some more blogs and websites to subscribe to.

Be aware that not all website/blogs have buttons like the one on this blog which allow you to easily subscribe to feeds using Google Reader. In some cases you will have to copy and paste the feed's URL into your reader following the steps below:

• Once you have located the site's RSS feed right click on the link and choose 'Copy Shortcut'
• Open another tab or window and sign in to your Google Reader account
• Click the 'Add Subscription' button at the top of the left-hand navigation panel. Right click in the text box that appears and choose 'Paste'.
• Finally click 'Add' and you will see the site's feed added to your subscriptions.
  

You should aim to subscribe to at least another 5 feeds. Why not try subscribing to the feeds from

• the blogs of fellow 23 Things participants. A list can be found on the 23 Things blog
  
• the blogs of other UK libraries and librarians. A directory can be found on the UK Library Blogs wiki.
  

You can also use dedicated blog search engines such as Google Blog Search and Technorati to identify blogs and blog posts on specific topics of interest.

And finally don't forget to write a post on your blog to show how you got on this week!

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a web feed format that provides the full text of web content together with links to the original source.

Many websites allow you to set up RSS feeds for their content. RSS feeds are also commonly available from databases which allow you to subscribe to feeds for journal articles on a specific topic. In this way you can be alerted whenever new content is added to your favourite websites or when a new issue of an e-journal is published.

To set up RSS feeds, you need a feed reader or aggregator - software that checks RSS feeds and displays updated content. Free web-based readers, e.g. Google Reader, let you check RSS feeds from any computer whereas downloadable desktop clients, e.g. FeedDemon, let you store them on your own computer.

Continue to Thing 5 to learn more about RSS feeds.

The first step you need to take when subscribing to RSS feeds is to sign up for a feed reader. There are many available but for the purposes of this programme we will use Google Reader as you have already created an account with Google.

• Go to Google Reader at www.google.com/reader
• Sign in with your Google account username and password

Once logged in you will see the homepage of your account. Down the left-hand side is a navigation panel and on the right is the main section of the page where you will see the content of your feeds. Automatically displayed are some posts from Google to help you get started. You can read through these now or come back to them later.

To show you how to receive updates from a site we will start by subscribing to the feed for the 23 Things blog.

• In the blog's sidebar you will see the heading 'Subscribe to this blog'. Underneath it are options to subscribe to the posts and the comments. For now we will just subscribe to the posts.
• Click the link to the posts RSS feed and a drop down menu will appear listing a number of feed readers. From the list choose 'Add to Google'.
• A new window will open giving you the option to either add the feed to your Google homepage or Google Reader. Add this feed to your Google Reader by clicking the blue 'Add to Google Reader' button.
• You will be taken into your Google Reader account. In the navigation panel on the left you will now see 23 Things Oxford under the Subscriptions heading. In the main section of the page you will see the latest update from the blog. To view previous updates scroll down the main section or you can use the 'N' and 'P' keys to move through the updates.

UPDATE FOR 2011 TRAINEES: As the 23 Things Oxford blog is not being updated regularly any more, you might want to consider subscribing to the Oxford Trainees blog instead.  Go to http://oxfordtrainees.wordpress.com/ and click on 'feeds: posts' in the top right-hand corner instead. Then follow the instructions above.

Let's move on to Thing 6...