Transforming Information Delivery

RSS for Law Libraries

Christy Schoon

NewsGator Technologies

April 21, 2023

Agenda

• Why Should I Care about RSS?

• RSS Primer

• Sources of RSS Content

• Practical Examples

• RSS in Action

• Building the Business Case

• Questions & Answers

Today’s Information Challenges

• Keeping track of information– Web sites, blogs, premium content sources, e-

mail newsletters, internal systems

• Ensuring attorneys see the information– Email is “dumping ground” and causes frequent

interruption

• Getting attorneys to use portals– Underutilization due to lack of updates and

relevant content

A Day in the Life of a Librarian

• Without RSS– Visits dozens of Web sites– Checks numerous Westlaw Watches and Lexis searches– Sifts through dozens of e-mails and newsletters daily– Clips articles into newsletters

• With RSS– Gets most information delivered to one location via RSS– Forwards e-mails to RSS feeds– Clips articles via RSS & subscribes attorneys to feeds

A Day in the Life of an Attorney

• Without RSS– Relies on e-mail for case law, regulatory and client updates

• Much of the information is ignored or lost

– Struggles to find information from Web sites and systems

– Never uses portal

– Leans on librarians and staff to filter information

• With RSS– Gets all relevant information aggregated in one place

– Reads RSS feeds in e-mail client, BlackBerry or Notifier

– Relies less on staff and librarians for one-off requests

– Participates in portal

The ROI of Enterprise RSS

What is the impact of saving 3 minutesper attorney per day?

100 Attorneys @$250/hour billable

15 Minutes each per week

1300 hours per year

$325,000 extra billings per year

What is RSS?

• Lightweight method of delivering information• Based on XML standard

– Easy to syndicate and re-use– Accessible across many platforms

• Uses “publish and subscribe” model

RSS Terminology

• Feed- The XML file through which RSS content is delivered

• Post or Article- An item within an RSS feed• Aggregator or Reader- Used for reading and

organizing RSS feeds• Enterprise RSS- centrally managed RSS

delivery system

What is Available in RSS?

• Premium content– WestLaw, LexisNexis, Factiva, BNA

• Public content– New York Times, Fortune, Law.com, CNN

• Internal content– Blogs, wikis, portals, applications

RSS System Comparison

Feature Individual Reader

Enterprise- SaaS- Based

Enterprise- Server-based

Content External External Internal and External

Authenticated Feeds

Some Yes Yes

Subscribe Users/Groups

No Yes Yes

Taxonomy Generic Customized Customized

LDAP Integration

No No Yes

Branding No Heavy Light

Reporting No Yes Yes

NewsGator Enterprise Server

Legal RSS Use Cases

• Information Aggregation– Case law and regulatory updates from Lexis, Westlaw, BNA and Factiva

– Commentary from legal news sites and blogs

– Matter and pleadings updates

• Team Collaboration– Article clipping and tagging

– Practice Group portals

– Client/Case team wiki updates

• Compliance (In-House)– Retention and archival of electronically stored information

• Marketing (Law Firms)– Proposal tracking

– Internal communications

– Competitive intelligence

Case Study: Dykema

• Company– AMLaw 200. one of largest firms in Midwest

• Challenges– Reduce information overload– Improve dissemination of internal content

• Solution– RSS feeds to Outlook via Exchange

• Use Cases– Matter tracking, proposal tracking updates– Factiva searches via RSS

Case Study: Goodman and Carr

• Company– Mid-size, entrepreneurial Canadian firm

• Challenges– Reduce reliance on e-mail– Improve usage of practice group-based portals

• Solution– RSS feeds to SharePoint portals

• Use Cases– Lexis-Nexis searches via RSS– Updates via internal systems (future)

Demonstration

The Business Case for Enterprise RSS

• Increased productivity– Less searching = more billable hours

• Better information uptake and retention– Information doesn’t get lost in e-mail– Better prepared for clients

• Greater portal utilization– More updated, relevant content

• Improved internal communications– Multiple outlets for disseminating information

Questions and Answers

Extras

NGES: Core Features

• Discover and read relevant content – Customized taxonomy– Searchable central index of feeds– Smart feeds – persistent, keyword Boolean searches

• Interact and Collaborate– Clippings feeds -- individual and groups– E-mail feeds – publish content via email feed– Relevancy engine, social reporting– Tagging, tag clouds, tag filtering, & tag feeds

• Deliver and synchronize across many platforms / devices– Web, Outlook, Notes, portals, Win/J2ME mobile , desktop, alerts– Full synchronization of feeds & read states– Clientless and client-based deployment options

• Centralized Management and Administration– Subscribe users and groups to feeds– Lock, block, white list, blacklist – Integration with Exchange, AD and other LDAP servers– Security, reporting, APIs– Scalable to hundreds of thousands of users

Publish and Subscribe- Defined

• Publish: New article, post, update. alert or site change

• Delivery: RSS Feed• Subscribe: Use RSS Aggregator/Reader to

read and organize feeds• Enterprise RSS- centrally managed RSS

delivery system

Changing the Mindset

Selected Customers