Research alerts, also known as current awareness services, provide the means to stay abreast of journal-based material published within your field. There are three types of current awareness services, but each publisher/vendor will offer its own varieties.
Please note: Most alert services require registration, including submission of an email address. Read the privacy policy for each service prior to signing up.
For help: Each service will have a unique interface: ease of use varies quite a bit. Brief directions or a link to directions are given below.
Content: the library subscribes to a number of databases from Ebsco. Databases currently include Academic Search Elite (4,500 journals), Communication & Mass Media Complete ( more than 420 journals), ERIC, MLA International Bibliography (more than 4,400 journals), Professional Development Collection (520 education journals), Business Source Premier (more than 2,300 journals), and PsycINFO (over 2,200 periodicals in psychology).
Subject coverage: select the Sign In link on the top right of the page. Create a new account or sign in. Select the Folder link on the top right of the page: from here you can select from a menu of choices for images, saving searches, journal alerts, and more.
Comments: Because it is a subscription database, alerts will include links to the full text of some articles. In addition to standard alerting services, images, videos, individual citations, and searches can be saved within each database. Registration is required to set up alerting services. Click on Help in the upper right for detailed instructions. Use the Choose Databases tab at the top of the page to see what products the library currently subscribes to.
Journal Alerts: Within each database select Publications from the menu bar, search for a journal title, then click on the title. Once the journal issue list is displayed, click on Journal Alert button in the upper right and follow the directions to add this title to your alerts.
Search Alerts: Perform a search in your preferred database. Once your search is complete, look for "Create alert for this search" on the top right and follow instructions.
Ingenta Connect
Content: More than 23 million articles, chapters, reports and more (some full text).
Subject Coverage: Mainly science, technology, and medicine; considerable coverage of the social sciences; business; some humanities and some fine arts.
Current awareness: Table of contents alerts via email and RSS feeds.
Comments: Sophisticated searching and browsing features. Browse by title, publisher, and discipline, then restrict to publications the library subscribes to. Registration required. Sign In on the right. For help, locate For Researchers in the top bar and navigate from the drop-down menu.
Springer Link
Content: Nearly 2,000 journals.
Subject coverage: Humanities and social sciences; environmental and plant sciences; physical sciences; behavioral sciences; engineering and computer sciences; biosciences; technology; health; law; economics. Features a Chinese and a Russian library of science.
Current awareness: Notifications of new issues and keyword alerts whereby relevant results are sent to you via e-mail.
Comments: Look for log in and register links on the far left, then use My Menu on the left to set up alerts and saved searches.
Other Alerting Services
Blackwell Synergy
Content: Over 850 journals across disciplines.
Subject coverage: Although strongest in the sciences, there is a fairly good selection of business, history, literature, and philosophy journals.
Current awareness: Offers table of contents, citation alerts, and saved searches.
Comments: Be sure to register from a computer on campus, since this service is available only to SUNY Oneonta affiliates. Once registered, you can log in from any computer. Select My Synergy from the top menu bar to set up profiles and email alerts. The journals tab will list journals with full-text available.
Cambridge Journals Online (CJO)
Includes over one hundred journals in the sciences, social sciences, and humanities. See a list of journals by title. You must register to be able to set up alerts.
Emerald Alert
Content: "Access to 160 full text journals and reviews from the top 300 management journals. It is the largest, most comprehensive collection of peer reviewed management journals and online support for librarians, students, faculty and researchers."
Subject coverage: Management, human resource management, marketing, librarianship, education and information technology.
Current awareness: Option to receive new results pertaining to a saved search, table of contents alerts for latest journal issues as well as weekly digest concerning Emerald publications.
Comments: A limited number of full-text is available to Oneonta users: these are also linked through select library databases.
Haworth Alerts
Content: Over 200 journals and thousands of books.
Subject coverage: Aging and gerontology, business and marketing, pharmaceutical science, library and information science, addictions treatment, herbal medicine, agriculture and horticulture, social work and human services, and psychotherapy and mental health.
Current awareness: Table of contents alerts, new book alerts, topic alerts.
Oxford University Press
Content: "Well over 200 journals, many in partnership with the world’s leading prestigious learned societies."
Subject coverage: Various subject areas (humanities, social sciences, sciences).
Current awareness: Chose from either email notification or an RSS feed for content alerting. Registration required.
Project Muse Journal Alerts Service
Content: Over 350 high quality humanities and social sciences journals from over 60 scholarly publishers.
Subject coverage: Literature and criticism, history, the visual and performing arts, cultural studies, education, political science, gender studies, and economics.
Current awareness: Select journals for table of contents alerts by title, subject area, or publisher.
Sage's Contents Alert
Content: "More than 485 journals, including those of more than 160 learned societies and institutions."
Subject coverage: Social sciences emphasis: business, communication, counseling, education, family studies, gender studies, psychology, social work, sociology).
Current awareness: Sign up for alerts by broad subject category or by individual journal title. Look for the EMAIL ALERTS link on the right.
Non-Journal Alerting Services
Amazon Alerts
Set up a personal account at Amazon, select the Your Account tab at the top of the page, and scroll down the page to E-mail Notifications. Alerts allows you to construct a search and receive notification when new books fitting the search become available through Amazon.
Google Alerts
Get email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic.
GPO Access New Titles by Topic
Free notification service on the latest government documents, covering publications in six areas: Business, Defense & Security, Elementary and Secondary Education, Health Care, Military History, Travel and Tourism.
The Scout Report
"Published every Friday both on the web and by email, it provides a fast, convenient, way to stay informed of valuable resources on the Internet."
U.S. Government RSS Library
Official information and services from the U.S. government. Select a category (Business & Economics, Education, Health, Environment, Science Technology) and receive RSS feeds on news and updates in that area.