One of the ways researchers can keep up to date with new publications in areas of research interest is to sign up for Table of Contents alerts for key journals – the electronic equivalent of coming to the library to browse new issues of a favorite print journal, with a few key differences:
- Electronic Tables of Contents often arrive before the actual journal is published, so you get advance notice of upcoming articles.
- The information comes to you, rather than you going out to the library for the information.
Interested? Read on!
Setting up Table of Contents Alerts
First, you’ll need to find an alerting service for the journal you’re interested in. That’s easy enough – many journal publishers offer this service on the journal home page. Look for words like “email alert” or “Table of Contents alerts”. (For examples, see here or here)
Next, you’ll need to setup your alert profile. This step varies by publisher. In brief, you’ll need to set up an account, select your journals, and save your profile.
Let’s take a look at setting up an alert in Anthrosource, the collection of journals published by American Anthropological Association (AAA), including American Anthropologist and Journal of Linguistic Anthropology:
Next week, we’ll look at ways to get search alerts from other databases.
