WISER Humanities: Keeping up to date Katherine Melling & Johanneke Sytsema

Aims of the session Why is it important to “keep up to date” in the humanities? What kinds of tools and services are available to help me keep up to date? – alerts –RSS feeds Demonstrations: –Zetoc –Arts & Humanities Citation Index –CSA Illumina/FirstSearch –Mailing lists

Keeping up to date – the challenge New information resources for the humanities are increasingly varied... …a n d v a s t

…and solutions… There are a number of tools and services to highlight new publications in your subject area –Journal/Table Of Contents (TOC) alerts e.g. ZETOC –Citation alerts from Web of Science Arts & Humanities Citation Index –Saving and re-running database searches e.g. FirstSearch, CSA Illumina –Mailing lists e.g. from publishers Linguist List –Library accessions lists –Save titles in Endnote or RefWorks

Before you start… The idea is to streamline and manage information To avoid being overwhelmed with s and RSS feeds, think carefully before setting up alerts –What kind of publication and information is most useful to you? –How much time will you have to digest and act on the alerts? –Will a new alert duplicate information you already receive from elsewhere? –What is the “life expectancy” of your interest in a particular topic?

RSS feeds RSS Really Simple Syndication RSS allows you to subscribe to udpates from favourite websites and other e-resources To set up RSS feeds you first need a reader - software that checks RSS feeds and lets you read new articles that have been added to them It is simple to subscribe to a free web reader – e.g. Google Reader, Bloglines, My Yahoo!

RSS feeds 2 You will know RSS is available when you see this logo in a website or database: To set up a feed from a journal to your reader, click on the button A new page containing XML code will open Simply copy the URL from this page into your reader You will now receive the TOC from this journal in your reader whenever a new issue is published

ZETOC ZETOC is the British Library’s electronic tables of contents service Covers 20,000 journals and 16,000 conference proceedings a year You can set up alerts and RSS feeds for particular journals, or for keywords or author names Available through OxLip, ATHENS password needed for remote access

Other TOC alerts Many other bibliographic databases provide TOC alerts Many publishers provide TOC alerts for their own e-journals – e.g. Blackwells, OUP, Project Muse

Citation alerts Citation alerts let you know whenever a particular article is cited by someone else This can help you keep up to date in several ways: –You can track how important a particular article is –You can find new articles on a similar topic –You can monitor how well received your own work is! N.B. Citation alerts tend to be more useful in the Sciences and Social Sciences, but still worth trying

Citation alerts – Web of Knowledge ISI Web of Knowledge includes the Arts & Humanities Citation Index You will need an ATHENS password to access the database, and you need to set up your own sign-in as well to receive alerts Create a My Cited Articles list to: –Receive an alert each time an article on the list is cited in a new article OR –Receive an RSS feed to view new articles that cite articles on the list

Saving and re-running searches First Search You must be registered before using ‘save search’ Click Save Search (bottom right) Re-run your saved search by selecting the search and click ‘search’ Or combine two previous searches using AND/OR/NOT

Re-run Saved searches

Saving and re-running searches CSA Illumina To save a search: –History –Save –Remember to register username and password! –Combine searches: go to history –Fill in #search number AND #search number

save

Build your own library How to manage found information? Import titles from databases into a reference management tool, e.g. EndNote or RefWorks Keep the important titles in your own ‘library’ or ‘sublibrary’ Export the title as a reference into your document No typing errors No need to cover the same ground twice Follow an OUCS lunchtime course on EndNote or RefWorks

results First Search marked titles Mark titles Mark allMark all Mark all titles

Export marked titles Select EndNote or RefWorks

Up to date with new info Library Accessions lists Mailing lists –From publishers –Subject based lists RSS feeds

Mailing lists (1) Many publishers will keep you up to date with new publications through their mailing list Fill in online form Select a topic No RSS feed

Mailing lists (2) Subject lists e.g. Linguist List –Book announcements –Book reviews –Jobs –Call for papers –TOCs Choose a list from Select sub topics Alternatively, use RSS Mailing lists RSS

Linguist List

RSS Feeds Find out about RSS on website Linguist List RSS: topic descriptions Choose topics, click submit See URL next to XML icon: you’ll need to copy and paste this into your newsreader

News reader Subscribe to a free news reader e.g. Go to Bloglines Subscribe Paste URL in box and click subscribe Want to read results? Click on ‘My Feeds’ on Shows number of new items

URL

Copy and paste URL into Bloglines

My Feeds

Summary Keep up to date to avoid information overload To avoid missing important information Using databases and mailing lists for alerts and RSS feeds Refine your searching, save searches and titles to avoid duplicate searching