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Doing Research

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Current Awareness Services

When researching a topic it is vital to make sure you are keeping up to date. There are some useful methods for doing this:

 

Journal contents email alerting services

Many journal suppliers provide an email alerting service for their journal titles. Usually you can select the titles you are interested in and they will automatically email you on a regular basis with the list of the most recent table of contents.

The most comprehensive service is Zetoc Alerts from ZETOC- British Library's Electronic Table of Contents. ZETOC Alerts are available for over 20,000 journals.

An alternative is TicTOCS from JISC which is a free service to help researchers keep up to date with the tables of contents from scholarly journals. Over 11,000 journals are included and individual RSS feeds can be exported to a feed reader.

Many of the large journal suppliers also provide services, for example: Science Direct, ingentaconnect, etc

 

Journal Contents via RSS Feeds

One simple way of keeping up with the latest contents of the journals you are interested in is to use RSS feeds - RSS (Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary) is an easy way to be updated automatically about latest contents.

Instead of having to go to lots of different web sites to keep up to date you can use RSS to be notified directly of any updates.

See the short video: RSS in plain English

Using RSS feeds

  • To use RSS feeds you will need an RSS Feed Reader (sometimes called Aggregator).  Many Feed Readers are free and very easy to use. One example of a popular reader is Bloglines.  See our full user guide to getting started with Bloglines.
  • Getting set up with Bloglines is simple, all you need to do is register with a password then pick up any RSS feeds from web sites you are interested in. 
  • To find RSS feeds look out for RSS icons or links RSS icon XML icon RSS blue icon RDF icon Right-click on the icon (or RSS link), copy the Shortcut (or Link Location) and paste it into your RSS reader.
  • Bloglines also has a Notifier you can download (may not be possible on campus computers), it tells you when you have new items in your Feed Reader.

Journal Suppliers and Databases with RSS feeds

  • BioMed Central - feeds on journal home pages
  • Blackwell Synergy - feeds on journal home pages (RSS link)
  • Emerald Journals - go to a journal’s Table of Contents page and select RSS link
  • EBSCO - feeds for Business Source Elite, Health Source, Econlit and SPORTDiscus searches; or for journals from these databases
  • HighWire Press - some publishers, but not all
  • ingentaconnect - feeds on journal home pages
  • Internurse - feeds from all journals from Internurse, e.g. British Journal of Nursing
  • Nature Publishing Group
  • New Scientist
  • New Statesman
  • Oxford University Press - feeds on most journal home pages (XML RSS feed link)
  • PLoS - Public Library of Science journals - feeds on journal home pages
  • Science
  • Scientific American - news items
  • STORRE: Stirling Online Research Repository - feeds of the latest items added to the University's repository: you can have feeds for the whole Repository, or select a particular Community or Collection, for example: articles added to the Department of Psychology Journal Articles collection
  • Web of Science - when you save a search history you have the option to create an RSS feed to access new results as they are added
  • ZETOC - very broad journal coverage from the British Library's table of contents service.  Feeds only include article titles, but if you select an article title then the Zetoc record will display, use the WebBridge button at the foot of this record to find out if Stirling has access to the full article

RSS alerts are also available for new UK and Scottish legislation.

Finding other useful RSS feeds

To find RSS feeds:

  • Keep a look out for logos or links on web sites RSS icon XML icon RSS blue icon RDF icon
  • If you run a News search on Yahoo UK then it produces an RSS feed (see the bottom right hand corner of the results page).  If you paste this RSS URL into your Feed Reader, then whenever Yahoo finds a new item in the news on this topic it will be sent to your Reader.  This is a great way to track an unfolding news story or business idea/product.
  • See UKOLN - for example, What's New in the Sociology section of SOSIG

Further information on RSS

 

Saved searches and Search alerts

Some databases allow you to save your searches to run again at a later date or will automatically run a search you save against the updates to the database and send you the result by email. This can save you an enormous amount of time, and is an easy way to keep up to date.

For example:

Web of Science search alert

Web of Science is a large, multidisciplinary database. To set up a Web of Science search alert:

  • Connect to Web of Science via the A-Z list of online resources
  • Click on the Connect to ISI Web of Knowledge button in the middle of the screen
  • In order to set up an alert, you must first register to get a username and password
  • Follow the link on the right hand side of the page (underneath the MIMAS logo) 'register for more features'
  • Fill in your details and click the submit and then the continue tabs to complete your registration
  • While you are logged in carry out a search
  • From the results summary page, click on the 'search history' tab at the top of the screen
  • Click the 'save search' tab. Fill in the required details and tick the send me e-mail alerts box, choose what format you want the e-mails sent in and how often.
  • Click the save tab and you have now set up an e-mail alert (you can change this to be an RSS feed if you prefer)
  • You will be emailed, as often as you chose, with any new records added to the database that match your search strategy

CSA Illumina search alert

CSA Illumina covers a number of databases across a range of subject areas. To create a CSA search alert:

  • Connect to CSA Illumina via the A-Z list of online resources
  • Select database(s) to search in (via the Specific Databases link)
  • Run a search in your selected database(s)
  • Click Search History
  • Choose a search strategy (for example #3), then click 'Save as Alert'.  
  • Enter your email address and password, then click 'Continue'. (If you are a new user to Alerts, then click 'New User? Create a personal profile')
  • Choose the format that you want your results emailed
  • Click 'Save as Alert'
  • Once a week you will be sent an email with any new records added to the database that match your search strategy

Many databases will allow you to create alerts - check the help section of your favourite database next time you search.

Citation alerts - be notified when a favourite paper is cited

One great way of keeping right up to date is to be notified when a new journal article refers to a favourite article of yours, perhaps an article you've written yourself, or one that is on a topic of interest to you.

The Web of Science database both makes easy to do this:

Web of Science citation alert

  • Connect to Web of Science via the A-Z list of online resources
  • Run a search in Web of Science for your article of interest
  • When viewing the brief details of the article - select the title to display the full record
  • Select the Create Citation Alert button in the box on the right hand side
  • You will be asked to Register (or sign in if you've already registered)
  • You will receive an e-mail each time the article is cited in a new article
  • You can also change the settings to receive an RSS feed instead

 

ScienceDirect

You can also register for the ScienceDirect Citations Alert Service in order to receive automatic notification by e-mail when new articles citing an earlier reference are published.

 

Page last modified, 2 December, 2009