Databases Alerts and RSS Feeds
Are you in the middle of your literature review for your dissertation? It's a long process to locate everything in your field, isn't it? Would you like to save yourself some time down the road? When you are ready to defend your thesis, you'll need to be up-to-date on all the literature that's been published since you wrote your lit review months ago! What if you could set up the databases you search most often to let you know when a new article in your field has been published? We've got great answers for you today.
RSS feed technology (the same you've been using to read your favorite blogs and newswires) can help you find scholarly material. Let's talk about a specific example:
When you are satisfied that your search terms are giving you the type of results you need, look for the orange symbol and "Create alert for this search." A pop-up window will provide you with the "Syndication feed" URL that you can copy and paste into your feed reader. Keep in mind that once you set up a search alert, your aggregator will only show *new* articles that have been added to the database. Keep in mind that you will need to set up separate alerts for every search that works for your topic. For example, if you are using different combinations of search terms, set up an alert for each one that was successful during your preliminary research.
One caveat: All databases are different, they are owned by different companies and have different interfaces. When searching your favorite database, look for the orange symbol, or wording such as "Create alert" or "RSS feed". If you are having trouble, feel free to Ask a Librarian for assistance.
If you haven't already found the perfect blog reader for you, check out The Ultimate RSS Toolbox, which lists over 100 different readers for different types of users. Common readers include Bloglines and Google Reader.