Web feeds are a simple way to automatically keep abreast of new information on websites. Website visitors do not have to surf to internet pages to look whether these pages have been changed. They can subscribe to web feeds of their favourite sites and they will automatically be notified once web pages have been updated.
RSS (really simple syndication) is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated digital content.
Users of RSS content use programs called feed "readers" or "aggregators:" the user subscribes to a feed by supplying to his or her reader a link to the feed; the reader can then check the user's subscribed feeds to see if any of those feeds have new content since the last time it checked, and if so, retrieve that content and present it to the user.
Nowadays publishers (e.g. ) offer ToC alerts via RSS, and database suppliers (Scopus) offer an alerting service via RSS. Look for the RSS icon (
) on their sites. On the Wageningen UR library website you will also come across the RSS icon.
For more information see e.g.: