What are alerting services?

Many databases now offer an alerting service which allows the user to keep up to date with new research in a particular field of study. When you register for such a service, you will receive the alerts via email straight to your inbox or via an RSS feed.

RSS, or "Really Simple Syndication" is a family of formats used to publish frequently updated digital content, such as blogs, news feeds, journal alerts or podcasts. With an RSS reader (or aggregator) you can subscribe to many feeds and read the new entries all in one place, without having to visit individual Web sites to find them and without cluttering your inbox.

Many publishers are using RSS feeds to provide an alerting service to advise on new information as it becomes available. Three types of journal alert are available:

• Table of Contents (TOC) alerts - these provide a list of articles from forthcoming issues of a particular journal;
• Keyword search alert - an alert is generated for all new articles matching a string of keywords; &
• Citation alert - an alert is generated whenever a nominated article is cited by another author

There are different kinds of RSS readers to fit your particular needs. Some are programs you download and install on your computer, for example FeedReader; others are web-based services which you access with a browser, for example, Google Reader; and others are email based which deliver the material direct to your e-mail inbox, for example, FeedBlitz.

Examples of Alerts via RSS & Email

Database Package	Subject Coverage	RSS Alerts	Email Alert	Online Help
SCOPUS	multidisciplinary			RSS Email
ISI Web of Knowledge	multidisciplinary			RSS Email
EbscoHost	multidisciplinary			RSS Email
Proquest	multidisciplinary			RSS Email
EI Engineering Village	Engineering, Information Technology, Earth Sciences			RSS Email
PubMed	Nursing; Medicine; Health Sciences			RSS Email
IEEE Xplore	Electrical & electronics engineering; Information Technology			RSS & Email

Useful websites

• Google Reader - create your own account:
  http://reader.google.com
• Google Alerts (email alerts):
  http://www.google.com.au/alerts?hl=en
• Obtain details of other RSS readers:
  http://allrss.com/index.html
  http://www.dmoz.org/Computers/Software/Internet/Clients/WWW/Feed_Readers/
• Subscribe to the FeedMyInbox Service from here:
  https://www.feedmyinbox.com
• TicTOCs - Journal Table of Contents Service: find scholarly journal TOC's and export the RSS feeds straight to your reader:
  http://www.tictocs.ac.uk

Further Information

• UQ Librarians Page - Contact your librarian in your subject for assistance.
• RSS in Plain English - A YouTube video on RSS Feeds.
• Page 2 RSS - This is a service that helps you monitor web sites that do not publish feeds. It will check any web page for updates and deliver them to your favourite RSS aggregator.