This document discusses ways for researchers to stay up-to-date in their fields through the use of RSS feeds, alerts from databases and journals, and other tools. It provides an overview of RSS feeds and how to set them up through Google Reader. It also demonstrates how to create table of contents alerts, keyword alerts, and citation alerts in databases to receive notifications when new relevant information is published. The document encourages researchers to explore various options for current awareness on the library's Current Awareness Libguide.

1. Staying Current: alerts and feeds
and more, oh my!
Mimi Smith-DeCoster
&
Beth Filar-Williams

2. A check-in poll
• Which of these have you used?
A Google Reader or other RSS feed options
B Alerts from databases and/or journals
C Both of the above
D Neither, tell me more!

3. RSS Feeds: what’s up with them?
• RSS=Really Simple Syndication
• Most blogs, news sites, etc. have an RSS feed
• You can “subscribe” to that feed through a
“reader” like Google Reader
• Google reader aggregates all of those feeds
into one place—you read that instead of going
and checking each place

4. Getting set up with RSS
• If you’re at UNCG, you already have Google
Reader available (more > even more > under
social)
• Sending RSS to email is also an option

5. Video intro to RSS feeds
“RSS in Plain English”
From 2004(!!) but still a great basic explanation
http://youtu.be/0klgLsSxGsU

7. Adding things to your
• Click orange Subscribe button
• 2 options:
– 1) Search from Google Reader
– 2) From the blog or other source, click the RSS
Icon, copy the URL and paste it into that box that
the Subscribe button gives you
• Read what you want without hunting for it!
• Organize: star, keep unread, tags

8. Demo of Google Reader

9. Staying Current: Alerts
• Table of Contents
• Keyword
• Citation
• Other alerts
Current Awareness Guide:
http://uncg.libguides.com/currentawareness

10. Table of Contents Alerts
Receive an alert of a new journal’s TOC
– Search Journal Finder to see if we subscribe to it at
UNCG through a database vendor
– Use journalseek.net to find publisher or try your
favorite subject database
– Use www.journaltocs.hw.ac.uk – grab a journal RSS
feed …. or login to create a list of favorite journal
TOCs RSS feeds
DEMO!

11. Keyword Alerts
Get notified when articles are published that
match your subject criteria.
• Search in a database, save the search, set an
alert
• Might have set up am account/log in for that
database
• Available in most databases
DEMO!

12. Citation Alerts
Select an article & create an alert for every time
it is cited in another publication.
• Citation alerts are not available in all
databases: Web of Science, JSTOR, and
Science Direct
DEMO!

13. Staying alert
• Beside RSS in a Google Reader…
– Email alerts
– Follow using Twitter
• Also, Google alerts, blogs, newspaper alerts,
new books alerts, and more!

14. Visit the Current Awareness Libguide
http://uncg.libguides.com/currentawareness

15. Q&A