Current awareness tools allow you to set up automatic email notifications of new publications of interest to you. Each database or journal publisher has slightly different procedures and names for current awareness alerts including: "toc alerts," "preferred searches," "my searches," saved searches," "email alerts," and even "my account."
There are two main kinds of alert services:
Search alerts allow you to specify keywords or subjects in fields of interest to you. When a new record is added to the database that matches your search criteria, then the database will send an email notification to you about the new publications in your area of interest.
Many electronic resources also feature table of content or journal issue alerts. These allow you to set up automatic email notifications of new issues for specific journals.
Search and journal alerts help you to stay informed of new research in your area. Even though search alerts are fairly straightforward to set up, the steps to create your alert can vary in each database or e-journal interface. This guide provides step-by-step instructions for some of our most popular services.
