Research: Alert Services   Tags: alerts, alerts, alerts, alerts, alerts, alerts, citation, contents, email, feeds, journal, of, rss, saved, search, table  

Table of Contents Alerts (TOC)

A table of contents alert emails you the table of contents when a new issue of a specified journal is published.

Search Alert

A search alert notifies you (either through email or a RSS feed) when new articles matching a customized search are found. You can specify how frequently you'd like to receive search alert notifications.

Citation Alert

Citation alerts are less common. A citation alert emails you each time an article you selected is cited in a new publication.

Web Page Alerts

A web page alert notifies you when a web page has been updated.

Twitter and Facebook

You can follow journals and bloggers on Twitter and Facebook for alerts when they update their websites.

RSS Feeds

RSS Feeds are subscriptions to websites or journals than you can read in a news reader.

Feel like your colleagues always hear about the latest paper before you do? Want to view your favorite journal's table of contents from the comfort of your home or office? Here's a way to stay current in your field with minimal time and effort on your part.

Alerts are available through many of USU's databases, sending you notifications of new publications, topics of interest, or table of contents from a specific journal matching your research interests. These services automatically send email notifications of new citations and some are offered as RSS feeds. Alert services vary by name (alert, autoalert, saved search history, SDI, etc.), but most operate in the same way.

Follow these simple steps for most of our major databases available at USU and then just sit back and wait for your customized searches to start returning results! Free registration is usually required.

RSS feeds are also used to deliver alerts. RSS stands for "Really Simple Syndication" and it delivers content to a feed reader as an XML file. You can subscribe to a RSS feed with a “feed reader” or “news aggregator.” A variety of readers are available for free, some are web-based such as Bloglines or Google Reader and others have to be downloaded to your computer.

RSS feeds are linked to the following icons or buttons: or

Bloglines example: subscribing to a RSS feed

1. Register for a free account with Bloglines (requires email, password)
2. Once you register, check your email for a Bloglines validation email and follow the instructions
3. Under the "My Feeds" tab, click the "Add" link
4. Enter the website address of the RSS feed

New to RSS Feeds? Prefer email subscriptions over RSS? Here's a tool that will convert RSS to an email.