About the Libraries
Related Links
Quick Links
New Options Enhance Current Awareness Services
Kevin Tapp
Research & Information Services
Current awareness services keep graduate students and faculty up to date on new publications in their fields. These services search a database every week for new citations that match keywords entered by the user and then automatically send relevant citations to the individual via e-mail. One of the benefits of using a current awareness service is that it allows you to search across disciplinary boundaries. For example, a researcher in materials science might be notified of an article in a medical journal discussing a new medical use of the material she is examining. Since she would not normally browse or even be aware of this medical journal, this citation might lead to exciting new avenues of research. Many grad students and faculty, in various academic disciplines, are already using one such current awareness service, Uncover Reveal, and have found it to be a powerful tool. In addition to keyword searches, Uncover Reveal allows the user to receive the tables of contents of up to 50 journals automatically via e-mail as they become available. The newest option for current awareness is not so much a brand new service as it is a new feature in some familiar, well-known databases. Many of the most popular and powerful databases offered by the library are distributed via Silver Platter software, including: Current Contents, Medline, Inspec, PsycInfo and Eric. Users now have the option of setting up a current awareness profile in one or more of these Silver Platter databases. This means that a researcher in computer science can set up a profile which searches both Inspec and Current Contents weekly and sends citations to his e-mail account. Current Contents is one of the premier databases for current awareness because it is interdisciplinary, and it is updated weekly. Users who already have profiles established in Uncover Reveal should maintain those profiles, but perhaps should set up a profile in Current Contents as well and then compare the coverage. A current awareness service is only as good as the database from which it draws its citations, and each database will include different journal titles. Broadly speaking, researchers have found that Uncover Reveal seems more effective in the humanities and Current Contents in the sciences. In the end, it may be best to have profiles set up in both Current Contents and in Uncover Reveal to ensure the broadest coverage. To find out more about these current awareness services, contact your library liaison.
Back to the Table Of Contents
This page is maintained by Suzanne Zack