Keeping Up with the Literature
Setting up Automated Alerts
Keeping up with the vast literature of science is a huge challenge, even within your research niche. While it's no longer feasible to just visit the library and browse through new print journals, modern databases and publishing platforms make personal alerts easy to create and maintain, and you can control what you want to see. These will run searches periodically and send you the new results. It's best to keep your saved search queries fairly general because there won't be that much retrieval on a short-term frequency.
Databases
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Instructions
Search Types: Topic, Author, Substance, Structure, Reaction, etc.
Frequency: Weekly or Monthly
Output: Log in and retrieve, or set preference to email with links.
Duration: 12 months (default); can be changed
Optional: Include (default) or exclude previously retrieved but updated references. (CAS updates and enhances references after initial publication.)
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Instructions
Frequency: Weekly or Monthly
Search Types: Keyword; Author; Citation (you can set alerts to let you know when your own papers have been cited by others!)
Output: Email
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Instructions (MyNCBI)
Frequency: Daily, Weekly, Monthly
Output: Email
Most NLM and NIH databases support updates, including PubChem and PubMed Central.
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Instructions
Search Types: Structure, Reaction
Frequency: Monthly or when updated
Limits: Save up to 50 alerts
Output: Email with links to result
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Publishers
Most publishers allow you to register for email alerts or RSS feeds of new articles as they are published. Some publishers also allow you to save keyword searches and send yourself periodic e-mail alerts. Follow the instructions provided by the publisher.
If you access your alert results from off-campus, the email links to full text articles won't work unless you are first in a proxied browser session. To make it work just add this prefix to the alert URL:
http://ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/login?url=
reload the page, and log in with your EID and password. Make sure that email from these publishers is not marked as spam or junk in your email program.
Current Awareness Services
The Royal Society of Chemistry publishes three searchable current-awareness databases that compile graphical abstracts from selected journals:
You can set up weekly email alerts for new books matching any search. Just
log into your account with your UT EID and password, do a search and save it, then set up your alert.
More information
