Current Awareness Services (CAS) provide important information to keep professionals informed in their fields. Traditionally, CAS involved selecting and disseminating newly available documents. With digital technologies, CAS delivery has shifted to be more personalized and timely. Effective CAS know the topics, users, information sources, and deliver the right information to the right user in the right format in a reliable and cost-effective manner. Common forms of CAS discussed include current awareness lists, selective dissemination of information, press clippings, research in progress announcements, and electronic methods like newsletters, blogs, RSS feeds, and mobile alerts.

1. Current Awareness Service :A Contemporary Issue in Digital Era Anil Kumar Mishra LIO, NCHRC, NIHFW, New Delhi Email id: anilmlis@gmail.com Blog: http://anilkmishra.blogspot.com

2. INTRODUCTION Current Awareness Services (CAS) is an important service provided by libraries and information centers It fulfill current approach to information Due to the advent of E-resources, library centered service are shifting to publisher centered service

3. DEFINITIONS Traditional definitions of CAS “it is a system or publication for reviewing newly available documents, selecting items relevant to the needs of an individual or group, and recording them so that notifications may be sent to those individuals or groups to whose needs they are related” Acc. to S.R. Ranganathan “Service listing the document appearing during a period covered & without being selected to suit the requirement of a reader or a specific topic under investigation”

4. HISTORY OF CAS In 1958, H.P. Luhn was the first to propose the use of computers for CAS. 1960-1980, Various CAS based on Computers and the use of CAS in specific business sectors were reported. Over the last 20 years various electronic methods for CAS have been reported, for example the use of electronic tables of contents, SDI services using CD-ROM databases, e-mailing of search results etc. Emergence of internet.

5. CHARACTERISTICS OF CURRENT AWARENESS SERVICES Not in response to any specific query Continuous need Not always necessary to go to the original document It is an announcement mechanism Speed and timeliness is the essence of CAS Wide sources of information covered Recent development in a subject field are given

6. WHY CURRENT AWARENESS? Keep professionals better informed in their respective fields of interest. Supporting and sustaining research, study, teaching and business. Automating the process of searching publications and retrieving relevant information, and thus saving users time, input and money. Providing information in a preferred format for reuse.

7. SOURCES OF CURRENT INFORMATION Professional or general news items Conference and events information Journal articles and books Specialist information New Internet resources Official publications Subject-specific sources

8. EFFECTIVE CURRENT AWARENESS SERVICES A good Current Awareness service is based on four main factors -: Knowing what topics to cover Knowing who wants what Knowing the sources for obtaining the latest information Supplying the information regularly and reliably

10. right user

11. right time

12. right format

13. right sources

15. The services are not tailor-made for specific target groups nor they support their specific needs as compared with traditional services.

16. In the Internet CAS, the interest profiles or search profiles are created.

17. Information is filtered and organized according to the user’s requirements.

19. keeping track of new web sites, discussion groups (listservers, Usenet groups), publications

20. keeping track of trends in a particular field of interest (for example by means of the tables of contents of journals)

21. keeping track of new research projects in order to react in a timely manner

23. 2.SDI (Selective Dissemination of Information)

24. 3.Press Clipping Services

27. SDI is a current awareness system which alerts you to the latest publications in your specified field's of interest.

30. RESEARCH IN PROGRESS Announcement of research in progress appears chronologically Find out new developments related to user’s working field. E.g.- TRB Research In Progress

32. Electronic newsletters

33. Discussion lists or electronic mailing lists

34. Weblogs

35. News and RSS feeds

37. Weblogs It is by the users for the users Some of these are available for subscription and some are for free.

38. Really Simple Syndication Widely used by news content providers to deliver news 'headlines' on the Internet Can syndicate content to third party web sites RSS feed use newsreaders or news aggregator.

39. Mobile Alerting Services Mobile Alert Services provide a simple and cost-effective method of managing important e-mails. Mobile Alert enables our e-mails to be sent directly to our mobile phone via a text message.

40. THANK YOU anilkmishra