KnowledgeLink Newsletter
Renny Guida
Director of Product Development
Thomson Scientific
The amount of information available to researchers today is unprecedented—and
so is the time taken to manage it. Getting access to relevant, high-quality
information is just the first part of the challenge; it’s just as important
to be able to quickly sort through it. One of the best tools available to combat
this challenge—alerting—is often under-used.
The resources within ISI Web of KnowledgeSM offer three
distinct types of alerting services that add convenience and customization to
the research process — and some innovative ways to use this capability
that will add even more options and power to users’ research efforts.
Table-of-contents alerting, subject alerting, and citation alerting all deliver
the relevant data users need, automatically via e-mail:
- Table-of-contents alerting delivers the broad view —
complete tables of contents from journals selected by the user. Instead of
managing multiple alerts from disparate publishers, users can receive one
comprehensive table-of-contents list that contains all the journal information
they need. Available within Current Contents Connect®.
- Subject alerting enables users to target key topics, using
their personal search preferences. Available within Web of Science®,
Current Contents Connect, and hosted databases available on ISI
Web of Knowledge.
- Citation alerting digs even deeper — allowing researchers
to easily track citation activity and be notified whenever a paper from any
ISI Web of Knowledge product they’re interested in is cited.
Available within Web of Science.
Promoting alerting as a crucial research tool
Many librarians help users take maximum advantage of this valuable, free search
capability. They:
- Monitor the results of usage reports, so that they can determine whether
users are aware of alerting options
- Provide alerting sections on institutional Web sites that show the types
of alerting available, and instruct users how to customize alerts to their
specific areas of research
- Encourage users to set up alerts for multiple recipients, so that colleagues
who are working on the same areas also receive the results
- Seek feedback from users that serves to share innovative uses of alerting
ISI Web of Knowledge personalization bar (on right) alerts researchers to key new and saved information
Alerting brings added value to the resources within ISI Web of Knowledge
— assuring researchers that they will discover all the critical research
information they need, without having to re-create a search. Users and librarians
can work together to ensure they are using this capability to its fullest capacity.
