1. _______________________
Current Awareness for
Research
RSS & Zetoc Workbook
_______________________
_____________________________________________
Should you require this workbook in another format
such as large print or Braille please contact us at
jrul.researchers@manchester.ac.uk
3. Current awareness for Research
Introduction
The workbook is useful for anyone who has attended the sessions 10
Tips on Avoiding Information Overload or Zetoc. It may also be of use to
anyone that wishes to employ some personalised current awareness
services into their research.
Aims
This workbook intends to take you through a number of short exercises
intended to introduce you to digital media intended to save you time.
Once you have worked through the activities you should be able to
• Set up news readers/aggregators
• Set up e-mail alerts for publications
• Set up RSS feeds
• Make effective use of current awareness services to assist you in
your research
It is vital to keep up to date with the research taking place in your field.
This may mean monitoring web sites for new content, reading the most
up to date articles that have been published or catching up with the
latest blog posts from researchers in your field.
There are two methods of helping you stay connected. You may set up
an e-mail alert or you can use an RSS feed.
E-mail
It is possible to keep abreast of publications and developments by e-
mail. Many information services, publishers and databases, enable
users to sign up to receive to mail when new items are published. These
are often referred to as alerts. The electronic table of contents service
from the British Library, Zetoc, offers a service where you may sign up to
receive these.
RSS
RSS has been interpreted to stand for a couple of things Rich Site
Summary and Really Simple Syndication being two of them. RSS feeds
are a way of subscribing to web pages and services in order to keep
abreast of the latest information or ‘headlines’ from that site. When the
information is updated then a feed is sent out to the provider that has
been selected to read that feed thus dynamically updating the
information that you get to see.
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4. It is possible to subscribe to a number of feeds in one place so reducing
the number of web pages that you have to visit to keep up to date
and saving the time it takes to do this. RSS feeds also reduce the clutter
that can accumulate in your e-mail in-box so is particularly useful when
looking at lots of information sources. RSS feeds are particularly useful
for any kind of site where the information is published regularly, news
sites, blogs and electronic journals. They are easy to subscribe and
unsubscribe to.
Feeds can be subscribed to using a number of different services.
Browsers
These are useful if you use the same PC all the time.
Internet Explorer 7 has an RSS logo that lights up when you are on a
page with an RSS feeds. When you click on the feed logo it takes you
to the feed page and then you can subscribe via the browser. It will
then be stored like a bookmark.
Firefox works in a similar way to IE and allows you to subscribe to feeds
when you are on a feed page and then it appears as a bookmark
(either in the list or on the task bar)
Readers
These are useful if you use a number of different PCs and have a log-in
for Google or Yahoo.
In Google once signed in it is possible to search for feeds or add the
address of a feed and subscribe to it.
Aggregators or Start Pages
It is possible to combine lots of information into one web page that you
may like to set up as the home page on your PC. Using one of the
following services will enable you to combine your e-mail, task list with
a google scholar search box, delicious bookmarks, twitter and various
feeds.
A list of Aggregators include
http://www.pageflakes.com
http://www.igoogle.co.uk
Alternative
Feedburner can be added to blogs and pages with RSS feeds and this
can offer an alternative way of using feeds which is to subscribe to
them via e-mail. If a site offers this you can just sign up and the feeds
arrive by e-mail.
A list of Readers include
http://www.google.com/reader
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6. Set up iGoogle
If you go to http://www.igoogle.co.uk.
The set up wizard appears in the middle of the screen. Tick the boxes
that apply to you and Google adds information to the homepage
linked under that subject.
If you already have a Google account you need not register for
igoogle. You may sign in with the username and password that you
have set up. This username and password will also allow you to
access Google Reader too.
If you haven’t you will need to register.
Go to http://www.google.co.uk/
Click on igoogle in the top right of the page
If you do not register the page will only be saved on the PC that you
are working on. If you sign up to create an account then the page
can be saved and used at different computers.
To add information and RSS feeds use the Add Stuff link on the right of
the page. If you find something that you would like to add click Add it
now.
If you then click the Back to igoogle link page then the data should
be displaying in your personal space.
Anything on your home page can be dragged and dropped around
the page into any arrangement that suits you. Your gadget’s settings
can be edited by clicking the down arrow in the title bar and
choosing edit settings.
It is possible to add more tabs to the side bar on the left. Click the
downward arrow, select add a tab and name it.
Click OK.
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7. Zetoc
Zetoc is a service that provides access to the British Library’s Electronic
table of contents. There are more then 20 million records for articles
and conference proceedings. The database covers multi-disciplinary
material from 1993 onwards and is updated daily.
To set up an alert in the Zetoc database
Go to the Library home page and Electronic Resources.
Use Databases down the sidebar
Click on ‘Z’ for Zetoc
Log in using your University username and password and set your
institution as University of Manchester.
Add your e-mail address the one that you use for your research.
You should give your list a name. You can have a number of lists so it
may be wise to think of something relevant. The system will allocate
you a name if you do not enter one.
Leave the hypertext links in the e-mail as this make it easier to find the
article of interest.
Click create
Zetoc will then confirm you request details and give you an expiry
date for the alert (in 12 months). At which point the service will then e-
mail you and ask if you wish to renew it.
Click the button at the bottom of the screen to add journals or
searches.
Adding Journals
It is possible to search for journal titles in a number of ways. Most
simply if you have a specific journal title that you wish to receive the
contents pages of every time an edition is published, type it into the
search box.
or
Select the letter with which the title begins
or
Select the subject area and browse though the journals available in
that area
Once you have found the titles that you want click Add
The title should now appear in the frame on the left.
You should now receive an e-mail when the new issue is published.
It is possible to continue adding more journal titles to this list.
Remember you will get an e-mail for each of the titles every time the
new edition is published.
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8. Adding Searches
It is possible to search for keywords or a particular author. These
searches will cover all of the journals that are in the Zetoc database.
Click Add Search
Enter keywords into box. Leave a space if you want to enter more
then one term and use the speech marks if you want to search for a
phrase Eg. “soft systems”
Use the speech marks again if you want to search for an individual
author Eg. “Aston, S”. If you want to look for two authors use just the
surnames with a space in between. Eg. Aston McIndoe
Amending searches
It easy to modify the searches that you have set up.
Click on Alert Homepage
You may add, modify, renew and delete alerts here.
Setting up a feed in Zetoc
Go back to the Zetoc homepage and click on Zetoc RSS
There are the same 3 ways of finding the feeds that suit you.
Either type the title into the search box,
Select the letter with which the title begins
Select the subject area and browse though the journals available in
that area
A feed is available for every journal title that is listed; the orange icon
is on the left of the screen.
Quite simply right click on the orange image and choose ‘copy
shortcut’ and then paste the address/url into the feed reader that
you have selected to use. Each reader uses a different term ‘Add a
subscription’ ‘Add feed’
If you wish to just save the feed to the browser just left click and the
browser that you are in will let you select where you want it to be
either in the bookmarks list or as a live bookmark across the toolbar.
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10. Journal TOCS
Journal TOCS (http://www.journaltocs.hw.ac.uk/) is very similar to
Zetoc. It is an electronic table of contents that searches over 12.000
journals. The service allows the setting up of feeds much the same as
Zetoc. The coverage is slightly different but there is some duplication
between the two.
To add a feed
Search for the journal by entering some if not all of the title into the
search and use the radio buttons to tell it what to search for exact,
starts with, contains.
Use the drop down menu to specify the search to title, subject or
publisher
To see the current table of contents click on the title and it will appear
in the centre of the screen
In the central frame you should see the orange RSS icon and export
feed to. Click here and select your reader.
This should automatically add this feed and open the reader.
Back in ticTocs tick the box next the title and click add. This adds the
title to your account (MyTOCS)
You may add a number of titles to your account before exporting any
feeds.
Tick the titles that you wish to receive feeds from.
Click on export selected, creating an OPML file.
Save the file tictocs.opml and remember its location
In Google reader select manage subscriptions
Click on import/export browse to find the file and click upload.
To cancel feeds
To cancel a feed just go into myTOCS and tick the title that you wish to
deselect and click remove.
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11. Database Feeds
Many subject databases are becoming more and more intuitive and
have many advanced options with regard to personalisation. Zetoc wil
only provide the table of contents using feeds but some databases will
do this using a feed.
EBSCO
The Ebsco interface allows interaction with a number of databases
covering a range of subjects, history, nursing, business. By setting up a
personal account it is possible to receive e-mail and RSS alerts, save
and share results.
• Set up an account with EBSCO click sign in at the top right of the
page
• Enter details to create an account
• Carry out your search using your search criteria
• To create an alert for these search terms click on the orange
icon
• The box (as pictured) will appear that allows you to configure the
details of the alert that you will be sent by e-mail.
• This box also provides the link that will enable a feed to a reader.
• Copy and paste this into the RSS widget in igoogle
• Now when the search is run (as specified by you) the latest data
available will be fed directly into your reader.
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12. SCOPUS
Scopus is a multi-disciplinary database.
JRUL provides a training session dedicated to researchers for using this
database.
• Register with Scopus use the link in the top right of the page.
• Perform search
• Save search as an alert (so you will receive and e-mail from the
Scopus containing new results to your search criteria) Click save
as alert.
• Review the details, search query, title of search, your e-mail
address frequency of e-mail before submitting
• To receive a live RSS feed click on the RSS icon and follow the
instructions
• Give the feed an appropriate title
• Click continue
• Here you may copy the url into the reader of your choice or use
the helpful buttons. Beware Google links to the Google reader
not to igoogle.
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13. Web of Science
Web of Science covers interdisciplinary material including the Arts and
Humanities Index , Science citation index and the Social Sciences
Index. It is possible to set up e-mail alerts and RSS feeds with this service.
JRUL provides a training session dedicated to researchers for using this
database.
•
• Register with Web of Science by using the Customise your
personal account on the left of the screen
• Click on Register
• Perform search
• Go to your Search History and click Save History
• Give your search a title and description, then click on Save. The
search should be saved to your account
• Underneath your alert details Click XML
• Cut and paste the url of this page into the dialogue box Add
Feed or Gadget in your igoogle account
• It is then easy to see when new items are found by your search
criteria
• You may save an unlimited number of searches, search alerts
and citation alerts to your account
• Alerts remain active for 24 weeks but they can be renewed at
any time
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14. Contacts
If you have any queries about this booklet or the services mentioned in
it please do contact the JRUL Information Skills Training Team.
Steve.mcindoe@manchester.ac.uk
Sam.aston@manchester.ac.uk
Jrul.researchers@manchester.ac.uk
Blog: http://jrulresearchers.wordpress.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/jrulresearchers
Web:
http://www.manchester.ac.uk/library/usingthelibrary/researchers/
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