RSS: does it deliver (so to speak)?

I have always avoided RSS ever since I heard about it, because, although I could see the value of 'push' technology, especially given enormity of the Web, I wanted to avoid creating work for myself. What I mean by that is that I learned from experience that subscribing to Listservs, for example, would result in influxes of emails that were almost completely unwanted by me. Signing up to a Listserv is relatively easy - just type in your email address in the relevant box on the website. It is easy to join, not always so easy to 'unjoin'! I am still receiving emails from library listservs I was urged to join by Uni library science lecturers, not to mention the unwanted emails that have arrived over the years from various other online businesses with whom I have conducted transactions.

However, I have recently been looking into RSS again because I believed it would have developed considerably from its early days (when I first heard about it) and this does seem to be the case. One can now have an RSS reader or aggregator, rather than everything coming to the email inbox. There is greater control of subscribing and unsubscribing and one is able to regulate the regularity of the inflow of items. I suppose my interest was linked to my recent interest in podcasts, etc.

Thanks to the Learning 2.0 tutorial, I have learned quite a bit more about RSS, its history, the problems encountered and where it stands today. I have set up my Bloglines account and subscribed to about 10 feeds - some of my own choosing, some suggested in the tutorial. It's early days and I will hold back on any major judgements about RSS until I have tested it out for a few weeks. Because I chose feeds which tend to reflect the sites I already visit or already subscribe to by email, I suppose I can't really see the benefit as yet. I receive emails on a daily basis from several internet sites which hold my interest and this system seems to work pretty well for me. At the moment I cannot really see the benefit in having to log in separately to a different site (ie Bloglines) just to check the latest headlines, although at least it all comes to the one spot I suppose. It is like the drawing in the YouTube video on RSS showing the setting up of the reader: it's all in the one place - the feeds all feed into the one spot so that would be beneficial if you subscribed to a great number of feeds. The ability to manage the feeds is also very useful in that case.

I think there are greater benefits for the sender of the feeds rather than the receiver, in a way, because it is a marvellous way of marketing and keeping a website or blog in the mind of the subscriber. For libraries, it is wonderful technology, as they would be able to advertise upcoming events or promotions at the library, eg author talks, or new collections, or educational services - the list is endless! I think libraries, or rather many library staff members, need to realise that many library members interact to a great extent with the library through the website, often only coming into the physical library very occasionally and briefly. More and more, people are using the websites and having a library blog with RSS would be a great way of connecting and communicating with those members and customers.

My library has just revamped its personal profile function for online library members, enabling them to be updated on newly acquired items that fit their Special Interests Profile. This is great 'push' technology, but the library also needs something that fulfils more general information - getting it out to the customers online.