Easier reading and research with an RSS reader?

I recently responded to Matthew Shugart on a Facebook thread, where he was complaining about the quality of the iPad apps being marketed by Cambridge University Press. I mentioned that I read almost all my journals now via an RSS feed. You can view them on your laptop or desktop via a variety of readers, and on the iPad, Feedler or Flipboard both work well. (FlipBoard is a beautifully designed iPad app for all kinds of reading.)

Some readers have emailed me asking for more information.

The RSS feed is typically available on the journal website.  Here’s the page for the Journal of Politics at Cambridge

After that, the process is pretty simple: figure out a reader.  The Google Reader works really well if you use Chrome.  Most universities and colleges already subscribe to the major journals, and if they do, reading is as simple as clicking on the feed and downloading the PDF.

The adroit reader will realize that this raises an issue about membership fees: why pay the fee when you can get the materials more easily (and avoid the paper copies–which for me go right into the dumpster)?

This is obviously an issue that every professional society is going to have to wrestle with.  For my part, I wish they’d have a reduced price membership without the journal, or else, as APSA has done, allow an electronic journal subscription.  I end up seeing and reading a lot more articles now that I digest them this way.

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