Mistaking the time, date, and, indeed, month of a dentist appointment this morning, I, instead enjoyed brunch with some close friends, Kate and Alex with whom I spend far too little time. The course of conversation led, as many with me do, to the internet and developments with it. Alex’s website is an online forum, a perfect candidate for an rss feed. I’ve been working on a concise, non-technical way to introduce this ’scary’ new thing to civilians (for lack of a better word); it goes something like: “It boils down to so thoroughly separating online content from how that content displayed that essentially, if I have a website that generates regular new stories, like forum entries *meaningful glance at Alex*, then my readers can read that content anyway they want.” At this point it hit me - What does this mean for the interface developers among us? I’m not so much of an alarmist that I think xml/rss will render my job obsolete, but I do think it has the potential to change it. BUT, I do feel like I’m fighting a battle, sometimes, when it comes to libraries… basically that this industry has not yet made a real commitment to investing in navigable, consistent interfaces. I tender that this is part of the reasons our users are depending on for-profit sites instead of ours. So, my worry, then? Does the rss/xml separation of display and content have the potentional to compromise my battle to win the hearts and minds of library administration?

Tags: feeds, interface, rss, usability, websites, xml

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