Typical questions

• • How can I keep up to date with the latest publications in my field?

• • Where can I find tables of contents alerts?

Starting points

• • It is very important for all researchers to keep up to date with the latest developments in their subject field. This can include conference listings, new journal articles, books and other research publications. Lack of time is a key issue so they may also benefit from consulting the sources in the Time Managementchapter.

• • This section is intended to offer general guidance on alerting services, conferences, and e-mail discussion lists. Students are also advised to check the websites of the professional organisations listed in the subject sections of this book, which usually highlight other relevant resources.

• • As technology changes rapidly, further new tools will evolve. Remember to keep checking the key organisations’ websites for tips. Look out for links to subscribe to e-mail publication lists, RSS Feeds or to follow the organisation on Twitter. The latter can be especially useful as it is common for many NGOs to link to their latest publications via social media before they update their website.

Recommended resources

Alerts

• • Researchers can set up alerts from search engines or journal article databases to receive automatic notifications when items matching specific authors or subject keywords are made available.

• • Alerts from search engines such as Google need to be monitored carefully to prevent information overload! Users are advised to check settings and frequency. It is possible to limit alerts to Google Scholar by creating an account, running a search and then looking for the ‘create alert’ icon.

• • In addition, it is useful to set up similar alerts to any journal article databases available via the local library as these usually contain a selection of journal titles not indexed by Google. Users may also want to monitor other websites, especially those covering government or think tank publications as these also often fall out of the scope of the mainstream journal services.

• • Alerts can usually be sent by e-mail or RSS feeds. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. It enables researchers to keep up to date with new items posted on a specific website. Look for the orange RSS icon. To get started, students will need an RSS reader.