City Research Online

Abstract

This chapter describes how RSS has been used at the London School of Economic and Political Science (LSE) to enhance access to information on training courses, including information literacy classes, for staff and students. RSS underpins much of what we recognise as Web 2.0 and social software. In his recent book, Bradley (2007) argues that in order to fully exploit social software in libraries, it is essential to understand RSS technology. Even a basic understanding can allow all librarians, not just those running a schedule of teaching or training, to make their information more accessible. However, our experiences show that RSS has information literacy implications: users must re-think how they access information on the web. Rather than visiting a website to see what is new, users are afforded a mechanism for picking up new information automatically. The tools required, while simple to use, arguably do require a greater level of information literacy on the part of users. Therefore, paradoxically, while RSS has provided LSE with an opportunity to make training information more widely available, staff and students need greater information literacy skills to fully exploit the technology

Publication Type:	Book Section
Additional Information:	This is a preprint of a chapter accepted for publication by Facet Publishing. This extract has been taken from the author’s original manuscript and has not been edited. The definitive version of this piece may be found in Parker, Jo and Godwin, Peter, (eds.) Information Literacy Meets Web 2.0. Facet, London, UK. ISBN 9781856046374, which can be purchased from http://www.facetpublishing.co.uk/title.php?id=046374&category_code=#.WbenDLKGNpg.
Subjects:	L Education > LB Theory and practice of education > LB2300 Higher Education Z Bibliography. Library Science. Information Resources > Z665 Library Science. Information Science
Departments:	Professional Services > Learning, Enhancement and Development

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