First off, the APA are asking for generous donations toward an endowment of $4 million to build a new American Center for Classics Research and Teaching. The point of this centre, among other things, is to:
The aim of the Center is to make high quality information about the Classical World available in accessible formats to the largest possible audience by using technology in new and exciting ways. We will accelerate the transformation of our field from the “gatekeeper” of knowledge to the “gateway” to insight, offering all the rich and rewarding world of Classics.
So what are these “new and exciting ways” that technology is going to be used? The only objectives listed in this call for donations seem to be dissemination, and the creation of “sophisticated and accessible research tools”. We want to know more. The one-page case statement (I’ve not read the longer digests yet), talks about spending $1.5 million on preserving L’Année Philologique. Is that the only and the most worthy Classics resource out there? Where is this being discussed? (All genuine questions, by the way, not criticism. I just want to hear more about the exciting technologies.)
I just asked Robin Mitchell-Boyask if they’d be intersted in adding a feed from the APA site and he has asked for help in doing that. Are any of you willing to assist? It would be a real help, as well as new and exiting!
More generally speaking, I frequently request that sites add a feed, and generally suggest the look at http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=2175271 when they ask for assistance, but that seems a little aged now. Do any of you know of sites giving advice on RSS in words of one syllable, so to speak?
We have some links listed on the Digital Classicist wiki. See http://wiki.digitalclassicist.org/RSS. We’d be more than happy to help the APA get set up to do an RSS feed. How it’s done depends on what technologies you’re using to publish your site. If you subscribe to the Digital Classicist list (see http://www.digitalclassicist.org/list/) and ask, we should be able to get you sorted out.