Many databases have services which help you stay up-to-date in your field, or alert you to new publications of interest. Most alert services are sent as email, but some are now offered as RSS feeds. About RSS feeds.
There are different kinds of alert services:
- A Table of Contents (TOC) service sends you the table of contents each time a new issue of a journal is published.
- A search-alert notifies you of new articles that match a search you've saved. This can alert you to new articles in a given subject area, by a certain author, or containing specific keywords.
- A citation alert notifies you when new publications cite a particular work.
How to set up alert services
Alert services vary between different databases and publishers, and they often have different names. This can sometimes make it difficult to find the alert services you want.
There are a few ways to find alert services on a database or publisher site:
- Look on the home page for options such as "alerts" or "email updates".
- Look for options such as "Register", "Create Profile", or "My Account", and read about what kind of alerts are offered if you sign up.
- Look for an option to set up an alert when you're on a search results page, or when browsing journal issues and subject categories.
- Some databases, including ProQuest, don't link to alert services from the home page. However, the services are offered once you search or browse.
You'll need to register with each site in order to set up your alerts. Registration and services are normally free to library clients, as they are included in the subscription the library has purchased.
The best place to start is with the database you use most, or look for alert services next time you're searching or browsing journals online. Be sure to go back and fine-tune your alerts from time to time, so that they stay relevant and useful.
Alert services offered by major databases and publishers
This is a brief list of the services offered by some of the most popular databases and academic publishers.
| TOC Alerts | Search Alerts | RSS Feeds | Other services | |
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| ACM Digital Library |  |
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| ACS Journals | |
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"As soon as published" alerts | |
| American Mathematical Society | |
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| AusNZ Ref Centre | |
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| Blackwell Synergy | |
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| Cambridge Journals Online | |
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| CCH Online | |
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| CSA Illumina | |
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| CSIRO Journals | |
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| Current Contents | Alert service offered via Web of Knowledge | |||
| EBSCOhost | |
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| HighWire Press | |
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Citation alerts |
| IEEE Xplore | |
"What's new" newsletter | ||
| Ingenta Connect | |
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| Karger | |
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| Metapress | |
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| Nature Publishing Group | |
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| Oxford Journals | |
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| Project Muse | |
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| ProQuest | |
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| Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) | |
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| Sage Publications | |
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| SARA (Taylor & Francis, Routledge, Psychology Press) | |
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| ScienceDirect | |
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Citation alerts | |
| SpringerLink | |
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| Web of Knowledge | |
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| Wiley Interscience | |
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Many academic publishers and distributors also offer alerting services from their websites, and these may include alerts about books as well as journals. Many professional associations and societies offer publication and conference alerts from their websites.