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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:
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