Alerting & Current Awareness Services

Introduction

Current awareness services are available to keep you up-to-date with the most recent publications and developments in your field. A number of databases and collections of electronic journals provide an alert feature whereby you can set up a search profile/strategy.

This guide provides links to a variety of automated current awareness services that result, depending on the type of profile or strategy, in table of contents of your chosen journals or a list of individual article citations being e-mailed directly to you. Only brief descriptions of the services are provided. More help is available from your Faculty and School Librarians or from the help files of the particular service provider.

Table of Contents (TOC) Services allow you to search or browse the tables of contents of journals for free, and are emailed when new issues are available.

SDI: Auto Alerting Services allow you to run searches against journal databases and save the search. Results are automatically emailed to you on a regular basis as new journal articles and other resources become available. A number of these services are available via library subscriptions.

Web Alerting Services are also available. They include information on new web sites, newsletters and other updates about topics of interest to you and can subscribed to for email delivery.

JCU Resources

• New Library Books - Townsville & Cairns

  These are lists of the new books which have been catalogued during the last week. The lists are updated each Friday morning. Each title is also listed with full details in the Library catalogue, Tropicat. You can also subscribe to receive a weekly email of new library books.

• Library & Computing News

Keep informed about current library & computing events including new databases, training sessions and subject specific resources available. You can also subscribe to receive a weekly email of library and computing news.

• Australian & International News Headlines

A collection of RSS news feeds that will keep you up-to-date with the latest news headlines from a range of Australian and International sources, selected for their interest to the JCU community.

TOCs

• Blackwell Publishing
  Over 600 prestigious journals within physical sciences, life sciences, medicine, social sciences and humanities. TOCs from the Synergy service can be automatically e-mailed to you as soon as the issue becomes available. This service is free and there is no limit on the number of titles that may be included.
• British Medical Journal Publishing Group
  The Customised @lerts facility lets you know when bmj.com has new content.
• Cambridge Journals Online
  Register to sign up for the free email alerting service which is available by keyword, subject or journals of interest. You can also maintain saved searches and article links.
• CSIRO Publishing
  Subscribe to their Early Alerts for the latest in journals, books, CD-ROMs and magazines
• Emerald
  The Emerald Alert Service allows individuals to register their interest online and select journals or an interest area.
• High Wire Press
HighWire Press is a division of the Stanford University Libraries, which produces the online versions of high-impact, peer-reviewed journals and other scholarly content. Sign in for a free account with access to all HighWire customization features including My Email Alerts.
• IngentaConnect
  TOCs from over 28,000 journals from Ingenta's collection of academic and professional online publications. Register for free and ingenta will email you the contents page of any chosen journal whenever the latest issue becomes available online.
• Elsevier ContentsDirect Service
  ContentsDirect is the free e-mail alerting service which delivers journal (TOCs) and abstracts for Elsevier journals and book (TOCs) for forthcoming Elsevier books directly to your desktop. ContentsDirect now provide users with direct links to the online abstracts and full text via ScienceDirect.
• ISI Web of Knowledge
  Use the My Journal List Option and "Create My Journals List and TOC Alerts". You will need to register first (free). Then add journals to your list via journal name or subject and select Send me TOC email alert.
• Kluwer Online
  TOCs for over 700 journal titles covering all academic disciplines. Kluwer Alert is a free notification service which can be used to receive updates about new publications, as well as the latest TOCs from any of Kluwer's Journals.
• Nature Publishing Group Journals
E-mail alerts provide you with a time-saving solution to keep abreast of each new online issue of Nature Publishing Group's publications and online services. An e-mail is sent to your inbox at the time of online publication, allowing you to browse the latest content immediately. Packed with information and links, you can easily view those areas of interest to you.
• Oxford Journals: Table of Contents E-Mailing Service
  A searchable, regularly-updated database of information for all OUP Journals (around 180 titles) is available, including a free Content Alerting service for most titles.
• SAGE Publications
  Contents of over 70 social science journals; includes an email Contents Alerting service.
• Springer LINK Alert
  Access to TOCs and abstracts from over 200 Springer journals is provided by the LINK service. Register with LINK, and as soon as a new issue is available, you will automatically receive the table of contents by email, including links to the respective abstracts, for which access is free. To use the personalized features of this site, such as Favorites or TOCs Alerting, you should login or register as an individual user. You will still have access to all the publications available through your company or institution.

SDI: Search Alerts

• BioMail
  BioMail is a small free web-based application for medical researchers, biologists, and anyone who wants to know the latest information about a disease or a biological phenomenon. It is written to automate searching for recent scientific papers in the PubMed Medline database. To use BioMail go to the primary BioMail service site, make an account, and submit Medline searches.
• High Wire Press
Sign in for a free account to access all HighWire customization features including CiteTrack which will alert you by email whenever new content in their journals is published. You determine which journals should be covered, and the alerts are sent whenever new content matches criteria based on the topics (keywords/subjects of interest), authors (individuals whose work you are following) and articles (when a paper of interest is referenced by another paper or letter) you want to track.
• Informit
  Provides access to over 50 of the leading research databases that have been published by RMIT in association with the database creators. Use the Load History/Manage Alerts link under the View Search History tab to save search histories and schedule them of regular execution or load them as needed yourself.
• Ingenta
  Set up saved search strategies and be alerted by email whenever new relevant content is added to Ingenta's database of articles.
• ISI Web of Science
  Search histories can be saved so that you can rerun them later. This process can be used for General Searches, Cited Reference Searches, or Advanced Searches. Check out our Web of Science - Advanced Search Guide.
• Ovid Databases
  The Ovid gateway provides access to a number of online services subscribed to by James Cook University such as Biological Abstracts, Econlit, CINAHL and SPORTDiscus, and also to some full text journals. Read our Ovid Databases - saving searches & AutoAlerts guide to find out how you can save a search from any OVID database and run it again later without having to retype it. The AutoAlert (SDI) Service saves your search and runs it automatically whenever the database is updated. Any recently-added documents found by the search are emailed directly to you.
• ProQuest 5000
  You can use the My Research Summary tab to save hypertext links to marked articles, recent searches and visited publications that you want to review later or share with friends and colleagues. These links will let ProQuest users access articles, searches and publications
• PubMed
  Cubby provides you with a stored search feature to store and update searches. First you need to register (free) then you can create and store a search (keywords or journal title) in Cubby to run on a regular basis.
• SARA: Scholarly Articles Research Alerting Service
  A service designed to deliver by email, tables of contents for any issue of Carfax, CRC Press, Frank Cass, Parthenon, Psychology Press, Routledge, Spon Press or Taylor & Francis journals to anyone who has requested the information. This service is completely free of charge and you can select to receive alerts by keyword, title, sub-category or main category.
• ScienceDirect
  Click on the Alerts tab, after free registration you can save searches, create search alerts, volume/issue alerts and citation alerts as well as create a favorite journal and book series list which you can browse and search.
• Wiley InterScience
  Users who register can receive saved titles, articles, queries and TOCs alerts from all Wiley InterScience titles.

New Releases (Books)

• Baker & Taylor: Academia Monthly online magazine of academic titles and information
• Cambridge University Press New Titles Email
• Email Alerting Services of Major Publishers/Vendors
• Harvard University Press New and forthcoming titles

Web Alerting Services

A number of sites on the web provide alerting services which update you on a regular basis on new content once you have submitted your email address. These services may be general or subject-specific.

• Australian Bureau of Statistics: Latest Releases from ABS. As well as an RSS feed they also offer an email notification service.
• CIT Infobits US academic site specialising in information technology and instructional technology sources
• Current Awareness Services for Engineering, Mathematics and Computing
• EdNA Online Newsletter Subscriptions
• Education World Mailing Lists
• FreePint Free email newsletter on where to find information on the Web.
• Internet Resources Newsletter UK round-up of new resources for academic users
• Librarian's Index to the Internet searchable, annotated subject directory of more than 14,000 Internet resources selected and evaluated by librarians.
• NetSurfer Science Netsurfer Science is a subscription-based ejournal about science and technology sites.
• The Scout Report Highly rated service offering a selection of new web resources of interest to researchers and educators
• Ulrichs Periodicals Directory: journals with RSS feeds can also be identified via Ulrich's Periodicals Directory. Select the Advanced Search option and under Features, tick "RSS Available" along with your other search terms. Links to the RSS feeds are provided.
• What's New on the Web from UQ

Please contact Helen Hooper if you have any comments, suggestions or additions.

If this information is inadequate, incorrect, or can be improved in any way, please let us know