Current Awareness & Weblogs
Engineering Research Guide : COAST : Electronic Resources : Site Index : Help
Having trouble keeping up with new developments in your field?
Set up free services that will send you periodic updates or tables of contents from specific journals (right to your email inbox) to help you keep up with new developments. Here are a few ways to keep up (Many of these services require a free one-time registration.):
Journal Publishers TOC/Alert Services
Who publishes the journals you read most? Go to the publishers' websites to see if they offer Alert Services or Tables of Contents (TOC) Services. Some common scientific publishers include:
American Society of Civil Engineers Journal Alert Service
Blackwell E-mail Alerts
Cambridge Journals Online
EBSCOhost Electronic Journals Service
Elsevier: Science Direct (select Alerts tab)
IEEE and IEE Email alert
Ingenta Select Table of Contents Alerting
Institute of Physics E-mail alerting service
Kluwer Alert E-mail Services
Oxford Journals Content Alerting
Royal Society of Chemistry
SAGE Publications Email Alerting Service
SARA: Scholarly Articles Research Alerting from Taylor & Francis
Springer Link Alert (select Alert tab)
Wiley (select Register Now)
Note: The library does not have to subscribe to a journal for you to receive updates. Simply use Illiad to receive the article in 5-10 days.
Non-publishers Alert Services
Here are a few non-publisher alert services:
SC Alerts
Create a profile and the Office of Science and Technical Information (OSTI) will compile lists of preprint articles and email you weekly from over 12,000 sources "primarily in physics but also including subject areas such as chemistry, biology and life sciences, materials science, nuclear sciences and engineering, energy research, computer and information technologies, and other disciplines of interest."
Science.gov Alerts
Use your own keywords to set up an alert feature that will "notify you weekly of new Science.gov information in your specific areas of interest."
Scout Report
Receive a bi-weekly report about new websites in Life Science or Physical Science or Math, Engineering and Technology.
EEVL: Current Awareness Services for Engineering, Mathematics, and Computing
EEVL, based in the UK, carefully selects sources including a list of current awareness services for websites, books, articles, conferences, symposia and conference papers.
Genamics JournalSeek
Search the "largest completely categorized database of freely available journal information available on the internet. The database contains over 66,975 titles." Browse by category and connect to publishers websites.
Amedeo (medical literature)
Receive weekly newsletters with overviews of articles published in your area.
MedFetch
Receive searches preformed in the medical databases Medline and Pre-Medline databases weekly or monthly.
Saved Database Search Alert
Some databases allow you to set up a search strategy. The database will then run the search periodically (i.e. when database updated) and email you the new articles that match your search criteria. Databases that offer this service include:
Compendex
Run your search, then go to "Search History" and click the e-mail alert box and click "Save."
Web of Science
Receive weekly email alerts based on your search preferences. Go to ISI Web of Knowledge and click on register. Once registered, you can go to "Create my journal list." To set up a cited author or cited reference alert, run your search in Web of Science then click "Advanced search" at the top. Then click on "Save history" and enter a name for the alert and mark the box next to "Send me e-mail alerts."
New and Recent Books
What are your favorite publishers? Most publishers have email alert services with new books. Check publishers websites for new books.
New Books in the CSULB Library (updated monthly)
Get a list of new books in different subjects that have been added to the CSULB University Library.
BookNews
Connect to new books in science, technology and medicine separated by categories such as computing, earth and planetary science, civil engineering, electrical engineering, astronomy, mechanical engineering and more.
E-STREAMS
Electronic reviews of Science and Technology References (Books) covering Engineering, Agriculture, Medicine and Science.
Weblogs and RSS (Really Simple Syndication)
With over 2 million weblogs in existence, weblogs may become an important means for keeping up with current research or finding out what a specific researcher is working on. RSS (Really Simple Syndication) readers are another emerging technology which may help researchers keep current by helping users to get updates when important information is added to websites (list of RSS readers or aggregators).
Here are just a few weblogs:
