WISER History:Stay up-to-date with RSS feeds and eAlerts

Isabel D. Holowaty, History Librarian

Ways of keeping up with research

• New journal issues• Learned societies’ webpages, newsletters, etc.• Published book reviews• Tutor/ peer network• eMail discussion groups• Regular database trawls• Internet, RSS feeds & blogs• Information services offered by librarian• etc.

Aim

• Introduce RSS feeds• Show how to collect & manage them

• Introduce electronic alerting services• Show how to create alert profiles

• Dealing with information overload

RSS feeds• RSS is a family of web feeds formats used to publish frequently updated

digital content, such as blogs, news feeds or podcasts.

• Users of RSS content use programs called feed “readers” or “aggregators”.

RSS feeds• The user subscribes to a feed by supplying to their reader a link to the feed;

the reader can then check the user's subscribed feeds to see if any of those

feeds have new content since the last time it checked, and if so, retrieve that

content and present it to the user.

• RSS feeds are typically linked with the word "Subscribe",

and an orange square or

Advantages of RSS feeds

• You don't need to register separately at numerous sites.

• Table of Contents (ToC) have links directly to the articles on the e-journal site.

• You can look at your ToC alerts whenever you like.

• Your RSS reader will indicate whenever you have unread ToCs available.

• It is much easier to unsubscribe from an RSS feed than from an email alerting service.

How can I read RSS feeds?

Register at an RSS reader web site such as Google or download and install RSS reader software.

Subscribe to your chosen RSS feeds. Look out for this standard icon: or or URLs http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/news/newsfeeds/all.xml

Right-click on the icon (or RSS link), copy the Shortcut (or Link Location) and paste it into your RSS reader.

Compiling RSS subscriptions

e.g. Google Reader (http://www.google.com/reader/)

See OUCS for more information on readers.

List of some useful RSS feeds:eJournals

ZETOC Alert

Oxford Journals Online

Cambridge Journals Online

Project Muse

IngentaConnect

Blackwell Synergy

Taylor & Francis informaworld

University of Chicago Press

BEWARE! Full-text access only possible if a subscription is held

List of some useful RSS feeds:Digital collections, HE news

British History Online (IHR)

Dictionary of National Biography (DNB)

Intute Arts & Humanities

Higher Education & Research Opportunities (HERO)

Oxford University, Cambridge University + many US

universities

List of some useful RSS feeds:Libraries & archives

Cambridge University Library

National Library of Scotland

Library of Congress

The National Archives (TNA)

Archives Hub

Access to Archives (A2A)

NARA (US)

RSS feeds in RefWorks

Useful if compiling bibliographical information for use in a

reading list.

Hands-on

Automated Alert services

• Proactive e-resources

• which match a search profile against added information

• each time the database is updated

• who automatically e-mail matches to user.

Advantages

• Automatic alerts

• in electronic format

• often before libraries have received/processed their copies

• immediate access to online content if subscription held.

Alert profiles

• Require identification / registration

• Registration is free and activated immediately

• Alert profiles can be reviewed, updated & deleted

• Some: access for a limited period, can renew

Alert profiles

• Search alerts (author, title) > very basic searches!!

• Table of content alerts (journal)

List of some alerting services

Databases & journals

Historical Abstracts’ Clio Alerts

Oxford Journals Online

Cambridge Journals Online

IngentaConnect

Blackwell Synergy

ZETOC Alert

List of some alerting services

Archives

Archives Hub

Arts & Humanities Data Service (AHDS)

List of some alerting services

Other

IHR Reviews in History, History On-Line mailing

list

THES Research newsletter, Editorial newsletter, News Round-up

British Academy e-mail bulletin

JISCmail

H-Net Reviews mailing list

Example:

Cambridge Journals Onlinehttp://journals.cambridge.org/action/login

Example:

Oxford Journals Onlinehttp://past.oxfordjournals.org/

Example:

ZETOC Alerthttp://zetoc.mimas.ac.uk/

Example:

Historical Abstracts

Find all History ejournals in TDNet

• Search TDNet

• Advanced search

• Limit by subject

Information overload: some tips

• Regularly review profiles and refine them if possible.

• Be brutal and delete profiles if not needed.

• User filters/rules/folders in your e-mail to redirect or sort

alerts

• Keep registration confirmations; they often tell you how to

unsubscribe.

Be alert yourself

• Oxford’s subscriptions to e-resources may change.

• Functionality of e-resources may change.

• If you are bombarded, do something about it.

• If you forget to use it, you may loose it.

• Remember all your login details!

Questions & Hands-on