The Galter Library teaches a related class called Current Awareness Services. See our Classes schedule for the next available offering. If this class is not on our upcoming schedule, it is still available to you or your group by request.

Current awareness services are tools you can use to keep up to date with the latest professional literature in your field of interest. There are a few different types of current awareness services available and different information providers may refer to their current awareness tools using different names.

Search alert services allow you to automatically run saved database searches with the results delivered directly to your email or to an RSS reader.

Citation alert services enable you to track new articles that cite an article you have chosen by sending you an e-mail every time the article has been cited.

Journal Issue or Table of Contents (TOC) services are offered by many professional journals. With TOC alerts the latest table of contents is sent to you via e-mail or RSS feed.

RSS Feeds push updates of web pages and blogs to your RSS reader so you don't have to check each individual site for updates. For more information, see our guide to RSS and Atom Feeds.

Some of the more popular services are listed below with step-by-step instructions on how to use each.

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There are two ways to keep up to date with PubMed. You can either create a My NCBI account and create email alerts or you can create an RSS feed based on your search terms and have the results delivered to your RSS reader. To use My NCBI:

1. Create a My NCBI account
2. Sign in to My NCBI

3. Run your search in PubMed
4. Click Save Search
5. Choose "yes" when asked "Would you like to receive e-mail updates of new search results?"
6. Specify the frequency, format, and maximum number of citations you would like to receive per alert  

You can also set up RSS feeds to automatically retrieve the latest articles into your RSS reader. To set up a feed:

1. Run your search in PubMed
2. Choose RSS Feed from the "Send To" menu

3. Choose the maximum number of citations to be retrieved
4. Name your feed
5. Click "Create Feed"

6. A new page with an orange XML icon will appear
7. Use your RSS reader to discover the feed on this page

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ScienceDirect is an information provider with a searchable gateway containing links to individual Elsevier electronic journals. Three current awareness options are available through ScienceDirect: Search Alerts, Journal Issue Alerts, and Citation Alerts. You must create a personal ScienceDirect account to initiate any of these services. Please note that your search alerts will be limited to only those journal titles available through ScienceDirect.

To set up a Search Alert:

1. Log in to ScienceDirect.
2. Click Search at the top of the page.
3. Enter your search terms and the fields you'd like to search. Then click Search.

4. From the results screen, click Save as Search Alert. (If you'd like to save the search as an RSS feed, click on the RSS link and save it as you normally would with your RSS reader).

A Journal Issue Alert notifies you by e-mail when a new issue of a particular journal becomes available on ScienceDirect. To create a journal issue alert:

1. Log in to ScienceDirect.
2. Click Browse at the top of the page.
3. Check the box with the heading Vol/Issue Alerts next to any journals for which you want to receive alerts.
4. Click Apply at the bottom of the page.

You will receive an email as new issues are made available on ScienceDirect.

A Citation Alert notifies you by e-mail when an article you select is cited by new articles added to ScienceDirect. To create a citation alert:

1. Log in to ScienceDirect.
2. Find the article you wish to monitor by either searching the database or browsing the journal issues.
3. Click on the article title to get into that record.
4. Click Save as Citation Alert.
5. Fill out the resulting form and click Save Alert.

You will be informed every time that article has been cited in a ScienceDirect journal.

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You can save literature searches using Web of Science just like you would in any of the other alerting services. Web of Science also offers a citation alert service. If you want to be informed every time an article is cited, you should use the Citation Alert feature in Web of Science. With this feature, you specify the article(s) to be monitored and an email will be sent to you every time that article is cited.

To set up an e-mail alert in Web of Science you will need to :

1. Go to Web of Science and register for a personal account.
2. Sign in to Web of Science.
3. Click on the Web of Science tab. This step is important as the search alerts are not available when searching all databases.
4. Run your search.

5. Click Search History at the top of your results page.
6. Click Save History/Create Alert on your search history page.
7. Fill out the requested information on the Save Search History form.
8. Be sure to check the box marked Send Me E-mail Alerts.
9. Click Save.

You will receive an email either weekly or monthly with updated search results.

To create a Citation Alert:
1. Sign-in to Web of Science and run your search.
2. Click on the title of the article to view the entire record.
3. Click on Create Citation Alert.
You will automatically receive an e-mail alert every time the article is cited.

In addition to the current awareness services mentioned above you should also note that many publishers offer journal issue or table of contents alert services. Take a look at the website of your favorite journals to find out how to initiate these services.

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This page last updated Dec 19, 2008.