This document provides information about setting up current awareness alerts from various databases and resources. It discusses how alerts can be created from databases like EBSCO, Informit, Web of Science, and Google Scholar to receive automatic notifications when new articles match your search criteria. The document also explains how to set up citation alerts in Web of Science and RSS feeds for tables of contents. General tips are provided, such as testing search strings before creating alerts and checking spam folders for emails.

1. latrobe.edu.au CRICOS Provider 00115M
Title of presentation
Name of presenter
Title of presenter
School / Faculty / Division
xx Month 201x
Research Smart Series
Keeping Up to Date- Database Alerts
August-September 2013

2. 2La Trobe University
What are Current Awareness Alerts?
Current Awareness Alerts
• Personalised updates on database content that is delivered directly to you
• Can be via Email or RSS
The Library subscribes to many online resources you can personalise to your
research needs, they can be:
̶ Database Alerts: EBSCO, Proquest, Emerald, Sage etc. all allow you to
enable alerts for new content (via a database search)
̶ Citation Alerts: Web of Science, Scopus etc. let you know when an
article (or author) is cited by a newly published article
̶ New Journal Issue Table of Contents alerts: via the databases or
straight from the publishers

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Why use Current Awareness?
• Alerts are personalised to your needs
• Save time as you don’t need to repeat searches
• Searches and alert strings can be sent to colleagues for collaboration
• Avoids redundancy- lets new articles come to you, and you can set email
alerts to go to multiple recipients
• Keep up to date with developments in your research area
• Keep up to date with news and industry developments
• Track company information or trends
• Monitor your own or a colleagues articles

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All about RSS
What is RSS?
 Really Simple Syndication
̶ allows you to subscribe to content on dozens of websites and have it delivered directly to
you in one place
 How do I subscribe?
̶ In Built Browser Support
̶ Dedicated Feed Reader e.g. Feedly
̶ For a list of available readers:
http://mashable.com/2013/03/14/google-reader-alternatives/
̶ Via Outlook
 Be careful of the proxy server, if you are not receiving alerts it could be blocked by the server.
To stop that from happening delete the 0-keep this part.alpha2.latrobe.edu.au from the feed
address.
 Need help? See http://www.latrobe.edu.au/library/about-us/news-and-events-via-rss

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Database Alerts- Same but different
Most databases offer similar features, and go about them in a similar fashion.
But there are differences
 Some require profiles to be set up
 Some require you to log in to see the ‘alert’ results
 Some offer more customisation
 There may be overlap, as journals can appear in more than one database

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Creating Effective Alerts
Tips for creating effective alerts:
• Make sure you know what you are searching for:
• Test your search – make sure you are getting relevant results
• Don’t overload your inbox by setting alerts with every database- Databases
frequently overlap but each do contain unique journal sets so make sure you
are using the ones that give you the best information sources.
• Make sure you are getting your alerts at the right frequency:
• News and special event alerts- you may wish to get more frequently for a
shorter amount of time
• Developing or long-established research alerts- you may wish to receive less
frequently for a longer period of time.

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EBSCO- Business Source Complete, EconLit with Full Text,
Hospitality and Tourism Complete, Index to Legal Periodicals etc…
• Most databases want you to set up your own account. Ebsco is one of them.
• The account can be used for more than just alerts.
• To set up the account: Click the sign in link at the top right of the screen, then
choose Create a new Account link.
• After creating a new account you will be automatically signed in. You will know if
you are signed in as the logo in the top left will go from:
• In some of the other Ebsco Databases including Econlit Full Text, Hospitality and
Tourism Complete, Human Resource Abstracts and SPORTDiscus; the icon will go
from:
• Don't forget to sign out after each session!

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EBSCO- Business Source Complete, EconLit with Full
Text, Hospitality and Tourism Complete, Index to Legal Periodicals
etc…
• Search Alerts
• Once you have logged into your account you can use the database as usual.
• When you have your search string finalised you can:
• Add search results to a folder
• Add the current search to a folder, to search for later
• Create a persistent link to the search
• Create an email or RSS alert.
• To save the search as an RSS Feed simply click
on the link and add to your favourite RSS reader.
• To save an Email Alert enter the email addresses
required (you can enter more than one!)
• To set how long the search is to run for (one
month, two months, six months, one year) selected Advanced Search.

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EBSCO- Business Source Complete, EconLit with Full
Text, Hospitality and Tourism Complete, Index to Legal Periodicals
etc…
• To Save searches:
• For more than one session, go to Search History. Under Save Searches/ Alerts you
can then Save them permanently in your folder, temporarily for 24 hours or as an
alert.
• To retrieve searches:
• From the Search History/Alerts Screen, click Retrieve Searches.
• Click on the Retrieve Saved Searches link for the desired search.
• To print search history:
• From the Search History/Alerts Screen, click Print Search History. A browser window
appears with the search history formatted for printing.

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EBSCO- Business Source Complete, EconLit with Full
Text, Hospitality and Tourism Complete, Index to Legal Periodicals
etc…
Journal Alerts
• Receive the Table of Contents (ToC) or links to the list of new articles.
• Go to the Publications Tab or sidebar 
• Publications in this category include Journals, Industry Profiles, Market
Research Reports, Trade Publications, Country Reports, SWAT Analysis…
• Clicking on the (RSS) button next to the Journal Name,
will take you to the Create Email or RSS Alert Screen.
• The alert is defaulted to 6 months.
If you would like it to run for a shorter or longer period of time click on
Advanced Settings at the bottom of the form.
• To cancel the alerts at any time once logged in, go to My Folder, select Journal Alerts
and delete the items you wish.

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EBSCO- Business Source Complete, EconLit with Full Text,
Hospitality and Tourism Complete, Index to Legal Periodicals etc…

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Informit
Informit is one of the few databases that does NOT require you to create a personal
account. Instead it saves your history and alerts to an email address.
• To save search histories
• Run your search
• Click on the Manage Search History
• If you have previously entered your email address you will only be asked
to add a description to your history.
• To look at that search history in a later date, you click on Manage Search
History, then Load. From the next screen you can Run or Delete your search.

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Informit
Creating an Alert
• Click the Create Alert icon at the top of your search results list or next to a search on
your Manage Search History list;
• If you haven't already provided an
email address you will be prompted
to do so.
• You can Modify, Delete or Run the
alert at any time by clicking on the
Manage Alerts icon at the top of the
page and entering your email address
if you have not done so in the current
session.

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Informit
Create RSS feeds for a list of titles in a database or for a single journal.
• Click on a full text database that allows you to Browse Titles. .
• The Titles Tab will take you to where you can access the RSS Feed for the Titles.
• To create an RSS feed for a Single Journal, access that journal and look for the Table of
Contents RSS Feed to appear. That will give you the code for the RSS feed of that journal.

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Web of Science
Web of Science requires you to create an account.
• Note on Signing in- if you get a certificate authentication error, accept the
exception.
 You can create an alert for your search by clicking the Create Alert/RSS button on the
results page.
 On the next screen you can give this a name, and specify the type (full
record, abstract, citation only), the format and frequency of the email alert.
̶ If you are after an RSS feed, leave the email box unchecked and press save.

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Web of Science
Citation Alerts differ to Database alerts as they don’t alert you from a search but rather when
a single journal article is used as a reference of a newly published article.
To Create a Citation Alert
• Go into the Full Record of the article you wish to receive the alert on.
• Click Create Citation Alert. (and then ok.)
• To modify, delete or renew these settings go to My Citation Alerts in the toolbar.

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Web of Science
You can also create RSS feeds and email alerts for Journal Table of Contents.
• Clicking Add Journals brings up the following where you can search for Journals by
name or browse alphabetically or by Subject, then select and submit.

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Google Scholar
You can create email alerts for searches in Google Scholar.
This can be done either from the home page before the search is entered
• Or from the search results page.

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Google Scholar
NOTE: the email address will default to a Gmail address if you have a ‘Google account’.
To change it you need to make sure you are signed out of Google before searching.

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Google Scholar
You can create a citation alert for a specific document by clicking on the Cited By at the
bottom of the record, and then clicking create an alert from the resulting page.

21. 21La Trobe University
Google Scholar
This is what the resulting email looks like:

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Google Scholar
This is what the resulting email looks like:

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Publisher Alerts
Most Publishers have their own alerts on their homepage, either through email or RSS.
Many require you to create a personal account.
For example:
• Cambridge Journals
• Oxford Journals

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Setting Up Alerts Libguide
• http://latrobe.libguide.com/alerts
• Includes more Databases, Google Web Alerts, Publisher Alerts
• More databases to be added…

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General Tips
• Make sure you test your search string before setting up your alert to ensure you get
relevant results
• Check the Libguide: http://latrobe.libguide.com/alerts for examples of other databases
and help.
• Some of these alerting services send an email per journal - be prepared for a lot of mail.
• If you are not receiving any emails, check your spam folder. They may be hiding in there.
• Unsubscribe if you are going away for a long period as mail can build up quickly. If you
don't want to unsubscribe check that your autoreply doesn’t cause problems with your
subscriptions.
• Make sure you save the welcome email of any service you subscribe to. These emails
often provide information about your username and password as well as how to
unsubscribe or change your subscription.
• Sometimes you may have to indicate that you don't want to receive promotional material
or have your details passed onto other associations. Although you have unsubscribed
from receiving emails , you may not be able to delete your account completely from a
service. Make sure you want that service to have your name and email address before
subscribing.

26. Need help?
Setting up Alerts Libguide: http://latrobe.libguides.com/alerts
Research Help Desk (Mon - Fri, 11 to 4pm)
Contact your FBEL Faculty Librarian:
http://www.latrobe.edu.au/library/contact-us/faculty-librarian-
phone-and-email
Don’t forget: Each database has its own help pages.

27. Thank you
latrobe.edu.au CRICOS Provider 00115M