What is RSS
RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, a Web feed format used to publish frequently updated content such as blog entries or news headlines. On KirkbyMalham.info it is being used to bring you news of the latest site News & Updates and the current topics on the Discussion Forum. The big benefit of RSS is the possibility of viewing information from multiple websites in one place and RSS news updates are available from many websites including The National Archives.
Subscribing to an RSS feed means that you can see what is new on a website without having to visit the site each time. If you would like an excellent, but simple, explanation of what RSS is and how it is used, visit the BBC Feed Factory webpages.
Viewing an RSS feed
RSS feeds can be read using a wide range of free RSS feed readers. These can be desk-top based like our Widget (Win & Mac); stand-alone reader programs such as FeedDemon (Win) NetNewsWire (Mac OSX 4+); web-based such as Google Reader or a feature integrated into your Web Browser (see below).
Subscribing to an RSS feed
Once you have decide how you want to display the RSS feeds, you subscribe to the RSS feeds in a number of ways, including:
• Drag the orange RSS button 
or 
into your news reader.
• Drag the URL of the RSS feed into your news reader.
• Cut and paste the URL of the RSS feed into your news reader.
RSS Widget
We have provided an RSS newsreading Widget on our Home page which provides access to both of our RSS feeds for site News and Updates and Discussion Forum topics. It is a neat solution to reading RSS feeds and you can download a copy of this widget, which will run on the desktop of your PC. You are not limited to viewing our feeds on the widget, other feeds can be added to its menu. Mac OSX 5+ users can run the widget without any additional software, but Windows users will need the free Spring Widget Engine, which will also allow you to run other useful Widgets too.
RSS on your Web Browser :
| Browser | How to subscribe to an RSS feed |
| Firefox 2 | Click the button in the address bar, or on a page on the site. The browser will display the current contents of the feed on a new page. At the top of this new page you may click the button that says Subscribe now. You will then be prompted for a name & location. The items in the RSS Feed will appear as individual links on the Bookmarks menu or toolbar you choose |
| Internet Explorer 7 |
Click the button on the toolbar, or on a page on the site. The browser will display the current contents of the feed on a new page. At the top of this new page you may click the link that says Subscribe to this feed. You will then be prompted for a name & location. The items in the RSS Feed will appear as links in the Favorites menu you choose |
| Opera 9 | Click the button on the toolbar, or on a page on the site. The browser will display the current contents of the feed in a new tabbed page |
| Safari | Click the  button on the toolbar, or on a page on the site. The browser will display the current contents of the feed in a new page. Click the  button to add a bookmark to this feed |