FAQ

  • What is a feed aggregator?

A feed aggregator is a tool which collects content from various online sources. Content is collected, we do not author the content, the source is always visible and the author credited. The rss feeds bring  content in a standardized format. Want to know more about RSS feeds?

  • What about ACE?

ACE, All you Can Eat, feed aggregator focusses on digital preservation and digital curation. All the collected sources match one or both keywords. Using Ace as your one-stop shop for information on those topics will save you a lot of time.
We do make more complex queries, compile feeds and restrict outputs in order to make sure we only show accurate contents.

  • How does it work?

Quite simply. At first, you may feel overwhelmed by the amount of content. It’s quite normal since the amount of data is huge. We make our best to use categories and tags to make things easier for the reader.
Each categories has sub-categories: News and Journals holds Google News, Libworm, D-Lib and counting.
You can either display all the news from a Parent Category ( New and Journals for instance) or restrict to only display D-Lib news.
Content can also be accessed by date: either by using the Monthly archives or the daily Calendar. All the items published in December 2009 or even on December 3rd can be diplayed.

Since we have strong topic categories, we decided to use a tag cloud to sort by Language or by Location. Location being currently worked upon.

A category cloud is also available.

  • Does ACE provide RSS and a search form?

YES. You can use the RSS button on to subscribe to ACE. ACE being a feed aggregator it makes more sense to run a search on a specific keyword and then to subscribe to the RSS feed of the query. This function is currently not properly working. Some users had no problem using Safari while others were unable to subscribe using Frirefox or other browsers.

We kept the search form simple, and  it is pretty powerful. We tried an advanced search but it did not work properly.

  • Why are the archives dating back to 2004?

We could totally restrict the output to news of 2010. But we don’t. Why? Mostly because Digital Preservation and Digital Curation are best to be percieved over a long period of time. Those are not transient issues. Projects, ideas, initiatives may go back to years and still be relevant today. Being about data preservation and curation we couldn’t decently dump all the archives!

  • Why are some (major) sources missing?

ACE is relatively new and sources are added everyday.
Some RSS feeds are invalid and can not be aggregated. Each time we find an invalid feed we contact the website and wait to get a proper feed. Some get back, some don’t…
Many websites do NOT provide any RSS feed. We contact them and ask them to create an RSS feed. We could totally “hack” feeds with tools such as Dapper but this would only serve our needs we’d rather help the community.
Last but not least, we could have missed a source. If you have a suggestion, drop us a note!

  • Where does the money come from?

ACE provides subscription based news update either on a weekly basis or on a monthly basis.

Access to categories, to category clouds and to advanced search is restricted to subscribers.

  • What’s next?

ACE is a work-in-progress. It is already working but some elements need to be improved. The RSS feed is a bit whimsical and sometimes it’s impossible to subscribe.

A NOW, News Of the Week,  category will be added, it is under development. It will be an edited selection of the most important news of the week on a  suscription basis.

  • Fancy ACE? Want one?

The Internet is a library with no shelves. There is a need for internet librarians and archivists. That’s what we are all about.If you work on a specific topic and would like us to create an aggregator, organize rss feeds into categories, find relevant ressources for you, contact us.

Suggestions are always welcome and we’d love to hear from you.