Strategies for using rss to deliver content, track 1, Online Information Conference 2006

This is a re-posting of one of our stories from the Online Information Conference, we had to make some ammendments from the original text due to accidently confusing some of the facts.  We've also included Peter Griffiths slides.  Download 20061129_blogs_wikis_and_feeds_slides_only.ppt

IWR columnist David Tebbutt chairs this discussion at the Online Information Conference 2006 in London on using Really Simple Syndication (RSS) technology.  The session is packing out, no wonder, this technology is important to all three spectrums of the information community: users, information services departments and information publishers.

Peter Griffiths, Head, Information Services Unit, Home Office, UK joins the debate, he’s an author as well.

“Reputation is an issue for every business”, he starts, “Some companies like Sun openly encourage blogging but there can be problems, such as when disgruntled employees have a grudge or overenthusiastic people give away trade secrets.  In the public sector we could inadvertently breach security or Freedom of Information rules.”  Matthew Taylor, outgoing political advisor at No 10, spoke at a recent conference on e-Democracy about political blogs.  Political commentators and groups increasingly use blogs as a campaign tool.  “Blogs were influential in the recent US mid-term elections and will no doubt be important in next year’s French presidential elections” says Griffiths.  The most visited political blog is as popular as Private Eye magazine.  He publishes server statistics on his site to show the range of users who visit, like politicians and the media. “Bloggers are now a serious political force in the UK.
“Government uses traditional media monitoring services like cuttings agencies but these don’t pick up bloggers comments or news stories from the Internet that don’t reach the national press or tv news bulletins, so we built on our existing current awareness service to close the gap.”
Karen George, head of the Home Office Library, has come on to present how the monitoring is done.  In July 2005 they set up a service on a trial basis for six months.  By Christmas 2005 they were providing information to lawyers, IT and a range of policy makers and services.  There was a rise in 2005 when a number of issues like ID cards happened at the same time and the number of current awareness alerts rose from 408 in November 2005 to a total of 1462 in November 2006.
There are two librarians part of whose job is monitoring internet based information each day.  Feeds are coming in 24/7 from a wide range of sources – websites, blogs, newsgroups – these feeds are processed through an increasing number of filters which select relevant information matching the key terms in the filters but although these tools make the job easier they cannot replace the skills of information professionals.  The professionals make it possible for example to highlight different aspects of the same story for different users.  The fundamental info pro skills of knowing your audience really come to the fore.

In just over a year this has become an essential part of the library’s current awareness portfolio.  The Office’s public enquiry service can be made aware of what callers are likely to be asking about, so they can be better prepared, and the library staff themselves are also well informed which helps them deal better with enquiries.  All this helps the Office to have a better relationship with its stakeholders.
“We add value and context to what we find, and the librarians are developing new skills like political sensitivity – knowing when a story is likely to develop into something big.”
Peter is back on : “The sheer volume of information means that we need high speed access and the ability to read a variety of file formats – for example our stakeholders like West Midlands Police are using advanced features such as mp3 for their Plodcast podcast.”  He concludes, “it’s unlikely we will ever be able to go back to providing just a conventional current awareness service, and this is likely to be the same for any corporate organisation.”