RSS - and the 24 Hour Museum

Our newsfeed service is at:
http://www.24hourmuseum.org.uk/home.rss

The 24 Hour Museum leads the UK cultural sector in the development of RSS newsfeeds. With the help of SSL Ltd and funding from MLA South East we have developed cultural newsfeeds for UK regions, 10 English cities, Welsh and Scottish feeds and a Museums and Galleries month feed as well.

Use of these content feeds is free for the cultural sector or the wider publishing industry. Individuals are welcome to use them via desktop feed reader programs for free as well. Further details of how to view them can be found at the bottom of this page.

What is RSS?

Let’s go back to basics for the sake of the uninitiated. What is RSS?

It depends who you talk to, but on the whole clever people agree that RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication – the keyword here is ‘syndication’.

RSS is about harnessing the masses and masses of information pouring out of the world’s webpages and channelling it to make sure you get what you want.

In other words, it’s fantastic technology that means web users can tailor the Internet to suit their own needs.

So, instead of fighting your way through the jungle that is online news, clicking from site to site in search of the subject areas you’re interested in, RSS allows you to pick those subjects and pull in the latest information being fed out about them.

A lot of mainstream web publishers are now sending out their work to whoever wants it via RSS - have a look at the BBC site or in the cultural sector, the Portable Antiquities Scheme.

Sounds Good - How Do I Get It?

RSS-borne content can be consumed in three main ways:

What's a feed reader and how can I get one?

To get your desired news flowing onto your desktop, you need a feed reader. There are lots of different kinds of feed readers out there – some you access using a web browser and some of which are downloadable applications – but all of them will offer you the chance to display and subscribe to the RSS feeds you want.

So, it’s as simple as picking out the news reader you want depending on what content it is that you’re after and there you go, it’s yours!

To download a feed reader simply have a quick search on the Internet and you'll turn up loads, but Feedreader is a good opensource example for PCs.

Once downloaded a small icon will sit on your PC updating itself with whatever news you want.

So how do I get a 24 Hour Museum news feed?

The 24 Hour Museum has had a free RSS news feed of our national website content since October 2003 – Britain’s first museum and gallery RSS feed, and one of the first in the world.

Below is the address for all of our content. If you've downloaded yourself a feed reader, just paste it in and away you go! However, if you just want content about your region follow one of the links at the bottom of the page.

The newsfeed service is at:
http://www.24hourmuseum.org.uk/home.rss

Note - that web address is NOT a hyperlink. If you type that URL into a browser you will not get a feed of our stories.

A non-stop stream of news, reviews and features can also be accessed in all of the ways previously described: through search engines such as Google, on websites, such as the South East Museums, Libraries and Archives or the East of England Museums, Libraries and Archives, which feature them in an updated news feed box and through a feed reader.

24 Hour Museum Feeds

The main newsfeed serves up content and stories from all over the UK, on all sorts of subjects. But the real beauty of RSS is that it enables us to 'customise' our output to suit you, the reader.

Below is a selection of feeds we've developed to show you what kinds of news, events and exhibition details we can supply region by region, in certain cities, and of course nationally for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

If you run a website, and would like help in adding our free feeds to your site or would like to know more about the 24 Hour Museum research in this area, please Ruth Harper: ruth@culture24.org.uk.

South East England Newsfeed

Manchester Newsfeed

North East Newsfeed

Scottish Newsfeed

Welsh Newsfeed

Show Me Newsfeed

South West Newsfeed

West Midlands Newsfeed

East Midlands Newsfeed

London Newsfeed

East of England Newsfeed

Yorkshire Museums Newsfeed

North West Museums Newsfeed

Northern Ireland Museums Newsfeed