eBay is a tremendous resource for the family historian. It is used to track down family Bibles, photographs and other treasures. I use eBay to expand my collections of vintage postcards and military sweetheart jewelry. If you are a collector or just hoping to find a family treasure, spend a few minutes setting up a saved search or two with the results delivered to your desktop via your newsreader. Once done, every time someone posts an item on eBay matching your search, that notice will appear in your newsreader. Yes, it is just that simple.

All of this begins at the eBay search page. Click on the Advanced Search option and begin building your search. Enter the keywords for your search and make sure you check the box to save this search in your My eBay. A popup will appear asking you to name your search. Enter a name that describes this search. Make sure to uncheck the box asking to email search results to you then click the Save button.

Continue down the search criteria, adding any additional criteria you wish then click the Search button. A list of items matching your search criteria appears. Now, scroll down to the bottom of this page and, below the listings area you will see a line similar to the one shown here with an orange RSS button. Click on that button.

Follow the steps to complete subscribing to this feed in your news reader. The example below shows subscribing in Google Reader.

When you first subscribe, you will notice a good number of initial items in your newsreader. These are the items already in the eBay system. From now on, you will only receive new items meeting your search criteria as they are posted. Sometimes I get 3 or 4 a day and sometimes I go for days without any. The beauty of this system is I don’t have to take the time to physically check eBay. They are delivered to me automatically. And, there’s no limit on the number of searches you can set up.

Don’t stop at eBay either. Look for saved search options at any of the archives/search engines you use. You’ll be surprised to find how often these services and others use RSS feeds to distribute updates.

Related posts:

• Research Delivered: Newsletters to Your Newsreader
• Research Toolbox: A Google Account
• Research Delivered: Bloglines Search
• Research Delivered
• Bloglines Update

Tags: e-bay, Google, newsreader
This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010 at 4:00 am and is filed under Tools. Both comments and pings are currently closed.