Thing 2: Keeping Up to Date Part 3

This is Part 3 of Thing 2: Keeping up to Date. If you have not yet looked at Part 1: RSS and Part 2: Twitter, please do so before completing this section.

Alerts

Firstly, alerts to new journal articles.

Some journals are on Twitter and if you joined Twitter, an easy way to keep up to date with new content, editorials etc, is to follow them.

A few to get you started:

• @TheLancet
• @BMJ
• @NEJM 
• @HILJnl (Health Information and Libraries Journal)
• @NursingTimes

Of course, now you also know about RSS, you can set up RSS alerts to journal titles, either from publishers homepage or by using JournalTOCS.




JournalTOCS
JournalTOCS is a free current awareness service provided by Herriot Watt University, and since the NHS no longer have access to ZETOC it provides a good alternative.

JournalTOCS allows you to set up either RSS feeds or email alerts to journal titles or subject searches.
Go to http://www.journaltocs.ac.uk/ and register for a free account by using the link at the top right of the screen.

Once registered you can search for journals using the search box on the home page. 

 From your search results, tick the check box next to a title to follow it, or click on the title itself to see the contents and have the option to subscribe using RSS.



To subscribe to the RSS feed, click the orange RSS logo and add the feed to your Google Reader.

Click on the orange RSS logo to subscribe to feed

Add more journals as you wish using the search or browse features.

View the journals you have selected (and deselect if needed) by hovering the mouse over your name in the top right corner, and clicking on “Followed Journals”.

You can also set up email or RSS alerts to keyword searches. Again use the search box on the home page, but make sure “for articles by keywords” is selected.

Follow # on Twitter
You can also keep up with information across the web generally. Again, Twitter (if you choose to use it) is good for this. You can follow the hashtag for a subject you are interested in. This is particularly useful for following conferences or meetings you have not been able to attend in person. You can also search for a subject and save that search. So for example, you may wish to be updated of any mentions of your hospital or library service on Twitter. Use the search box to search by keyword, and then click the “cog” at the top right of the results to save. You may save up to 25 searches in Twitter.  To access your saved searches just click again in the search box and a list will appear.








 Google Alerts
Finally, you can set up Google alerts to keep up to date with a topic.
Click More on the Google homepage, and select “Even More”. On the next page scroll down to Alerts (under specialised search).

Type in your search query, and select where you want google to search (e.g. everything or just blogs etc) and how often you want to be updated. Add your email address and click Create Alert.

Click Manage your Alerts to see what you have created and delete as necessary.

Your Thing: Task 4
Your final task for Keeping up to date is to write a short blog post on your experience of using JournalTocs / RSS / Twitter as a means of keeping up to date with journal articles. Do you use any of these methods already? Do you have a preferred method?

How helpful do you think Google Alerts will be? 

Do you use any other methods to keep yourself up to date?


We hope your have enjoyed Thing 2. Remember to write an entry for your blog as you complete each task. Thing 3, Working Collaboratively,  will be posted on 15th October.