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University Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Current Awareness

Tools and tips for staying up-to-date on research and published literature in your field.

RSS Feeds

RSS (which stands for Rich Site Summary, or more commonly Really Simple Syndication) is a way to keep current on websites which frequently update their content. RSS feeds are available for news sites including specific sections such as breaking news or sports (e.g. Reuters, The Associated Press, and The Chronicle of Higher Education).

Look for the orange RSS symbol -- RSS Icon -- and click on it for the feed URL you can paste into the "Add Feeds" section of your feed reader.

RSS Feed Readers

In order to utilize RSS you'll need an RSS feed reader, also commonly called an aggregator. For more information about this, please consult our RSS Reader Guide to choose a reader that's right for you!  You may also be interested in reading feeds on your smartphone or tablet. 

Readers:

News and Social Media Dashboard Apps (with options to import RSS Feeds):

 

Other options include:

  • Emailing yourself a feed.
  • Integrating RSS into your email using Outlook, Gmail, or Thunderbird.
  • Downloading the app version of your RSS feed reader to your smartphone or tablet.