Have you ever wondered how you can keep up with the tremendous sources of information that are now currently available on the internet? Have you ever wished you could have a single “dashboard” for all of the journal table of contents, new book releases, newspaper headlines, college announcements, etc without having to wade through 1000s of emails or manual web searches? Given the set of information we have to digest, how can we ever keep up with something like this blog?There is an answer to these questions: RSS feeds. RSS stands for “really simple syndication” and many information providers (fancy words for “publishers”) now offer RSS feeds of their content. Take this blog for example. On the upper left hand side of the blog is a little orange icon that looks like this . If you click on this image using a reasonably new version of Internet Explorer or Safari (on the Mac), you will be asked by our browser if you want to subscribe to this “feed.” If you subscribe, your browser will add entries to a list of “feeds” that will always show the latest postings on the CLA Blog. Thus, you can see if something has been posted simply by looking at the headlines of the latest sets of postings in your browser. Simple.If you look around (e.g., the New York Times online) you will see this icon in lots of places: journal home pages, publisher home pages, newspapers, magazines, blogs, websites, etc. By subscribing to these RSS feeds you can expand your “dashboard” view extensively to include a majority of the information sources you need on a daily basis. This can be really handy for tracking the latest contents of journals that you don’t get in paper form and can allow one to be current in disciplines farther and farther than one’s ownFancier RSS readers are also available. The newer versions of Microsoft Outlook have RSS readers built in. A free version via email client from the Mozilla project Thunderbird, enables RSS feed management. Google offers a free web-based solution. There are many others out there to download and try. Personally, I use NetNewsWire for the Mac (the windows version is called “FeedDemon.” These cost about $30, but are worth the investment in my opinion for ease of management for lots of feeds. Of course, there are many choices and everyone will have different preferences. I encourage you to try out the RSS feed for this blog – if the blog is going to be useful it needs to have timely information on it with attentive readers and contributors. What we all would like is to have a means of interacting that doesn’t depend on email given the flood of messages (real, junk and otherwise) we receive everyday. We also want to be able to integrate the use of the blog website into everyday instructional and research activities that we do already such as reading the news, headlines and journal content. RSS feeds are one of the means by which this is process can be done in an easy, productive and relatively painless fashion.

Beginning shortly in the fall semester, I will be beginning to announce the details of the 2008 CLA Student Research Poster Showcase. This event will be held towards the end of Spring semester – probably in early May as was the case last year. With enough announcements and lots of time to prepare, we hope to substantially increase the numbers of posters and the amount of involvement by faculty, students and departments. Efforts to coordinate this will include: increasing the number of poster boards, communication and coordination of the poster session with class assignments, theses and coursework, communication about the poster session with the local community and alumni, organization of awards and judging, etc. We will likely use the CLA Blog as a central means of communications and announcements since the information here is persistent (unlike email) though timely messages will be sent out to the College. If you have ideas or thoughts on the poster session, please post them here so that everyone can be involved and have input. Let me know if you have questions! Carl 

The new CLA website is now up and live. You can view it at: http://www.csulb.edu/colleges/cla/  

The 2007 CLA Convocation will be held immediately following the
University Convocation on Friday, August 31, 2007
at 11:00 – 12:30 p.m.  at the University Studio Theater. Lunch will be served on the lawn  in front of the MHB Building  following the ceremony.

Please RSVP by Monday, August 20th, 2007
By calling ext. 5-7010 or via e-mail cla_deans@yahoo.com

Some photos of CLA students doing archaeological research on Easter Island, Chile this summer are available at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/carllipo/sets/72157600951410328/

and 

http://www.flickr.com/groups/easterisland/