[Koha] Koha and RSS

[Pat Eyler]

A couple of us have been playing around with creating RSS feeds from Koha.
We've come up with an engine which makes this pretty simple, and will be
releasing it shortly (separately from Koha proper until after Koha 2.0.0
comes out).

Before we do release it, I wanted to get a bit of feedback on the idea in
general.  If you're impatient, you can go look at
http://www.kohalabs.com/rss/ for screenshots and links.

===What is it:
RSS is a method for publishing small chunks of data.  The first example
was a list of the 15 most recently acquired items in the database
(probably nice for the avid reader/fan), a different version could be
written to show recently acquired DVDs, CDs, videos, etc..  Another
example shows the 15 items seen least recently by the system (perhaps
they've been lost or misfiled).  I'm sure that there are other potential
uses for both library patrons and for library staff.

Nobody wants to see the raw RSS data, but there are a number of tools
(called 'aggragators') which can be used to display the information in a
useful way.  (The screenshots linked to above show an aggregator called
evolution.)

===What kind of feedback do I want:
Well, something other than 'it sucks' or 'c00l d00d!'.  I'd like to know
if you think this might be useful.  Are there other kinds of data you'd
like to see in this format?  Are there things you'd like to provide to
your patrons like this?

thanks,
-pate