1. Humanities PGR Module
SESSION FIVE: KEEPING
UP-TO-DATE
STEVE MCINDOE
AMAR NAZIR

2. Learning outcomes
At the end of this session you will be able to:
 Identify relevant current awareness services
 Set up alerts in a range of services
 Understand and use subject discussion lists
 Identify sources of further information

3. Current awareness services
Help keep you up-to-
date
Alert you to new
information
Cover a wide range of
sources

4. Types of alerts
Email alerts
• Daily, weekly or monthly updates
RSS feeds
• Really Simple Syndication
• RSS readers (Google Reader,
Bloglines etc)

5. Using RSS to follow blogs
RSS in Plain English

6. Journal Table of Contents (ToC) alerts
Journal titles
• Publishers websites
Aggregated services
• Zetoc
• TicTocs, JournalTOCs

7. Database search alerts
 Many databases offer alerting services
 Types of alerts vary:
 Tables of Contents
 Saved Searches
 Citations
 Registration usually required (free)

8. Google Alerts
Google Google Scholar
• News • Articles
• Blogs • Theses
• Videos • Books
• Discussions • Abstracts
• Real time • Conference
• Everything! proceedings

9. Google Scholar coverage
Academic publishers
Professional societies
Online repositories
Academic websites

10. Google Scholar alerts
Advantages Disadvantages
 No need for an account  Limited management
 Unlimited number of options without an
alerts (WARNING!) account
 New innovations  Results vary from full-
 Easy to cancel alerts
text to abstract to basic
reference

11. Discussion lists
Advantages Disadvantages
 Fast response to  Lots of irrelevant
questions emails!
 Instant contribution to
discussions
 Access to expertise

12. Some examples
 H-Net: Humanities and Social Sciences
Online
http://www.h-net.org
 Google Groups
https://groups.google.com
 JISCMail
http://www/jiscmail.ac.uk

13. Why JISCMail?
 Specfically for the HE/ FE and research community
 Facilitates knowledge sharing within UK-centred
academic community
 Thousands of groups covering many categories

14. Web-logs / Blogs
Definition Key features
“a personal website or  Free & easy
web page on which an  Online
individual records  Open to anyone
opinions, links to other  Instant
sites, etc. on a regular  Two-way conversation
basis.”  Self-regulated
 Accessible anywhere
(Oxford English Dictionary)  Etc.

15. Research blogs are often used to …
 Build conversation on a topic or issue
 Test ideas and thoughts
 Share research, opinions, resources, news, etc.
 Receive a wider audience than academic journals
 Disseminate or publicise own research &
publications
 Build networks and contacts between researchers
with common interests
 Etc.

16. Collaboration using Mendeley
Key features:
1. Reference manager
2. Read and annotate PDFs
3. Networking
4. Collaboration

17. Collaboration in Mendeley
Create and Use Groups

18. Further information
www.manchester.ac.uk/library
jrulresearchers.wordpress.com