How to: Journal Table of Contents Alerts   Tags: academic_research  

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Have you ever wondered how you could get your favorite journals for free via the library? If so, this guide is for you!

	The first step is to search the library to see if we subscribe to an electronic version of the journal you are interested in. Select E-Journal Titles from the library website and type in the name of the journal.
	Select the resource that you want to get the journal from. HINT: Table of contents (TOC) alerts are most timely when they come directly from the publisher's database, however if you have multiple journals you may want to go with a third-party vendor database (see below.)
	Select the option on how you want to recieve your alerts (RSS or email alerts) by looking for a RSS symbol, set up alert link or similar option on the database page for that journal.

Each database has its own system for sending out linked table of contents (TOCs) alerts. It may be advisable to use RSS or to group your alerts from as few databases as possible.

e.g. Say Journal of ABC is available from ProQuest, EBSCO and publisher X, Journal of DEF is available via EBSCO and publisher Y, and Journal of GHI is available from EBSCO and publisher Z. In this case you might want to set up your alerts via EBSCO.

Passkey Bookmarklet

A key to getting quick, off-campus access to electronic resources

• Connect to databases and journals without going through the library web site
• Find a link to a licensed article or database, click on the passkey and connect to licensed resources

Bookmark the icon or Add to Favorites
In FireFox, drag the icon to your browser links toolbar
In Internet Explorer, right-click the icon, add to favorites

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What is RSS and why would I use it instead of email alerts?

RSS is a way to have content from many different websites brought to you only when it is updated. For example, instead of having to go to several news websites to see what is new, you can "subscribe" to different website's RSS feeds. Then when you want to see if anything has been updated you can go to your RSS reader and any updates to any of the sites will be there in your reader.

RSS can be a better choice than email for journal TOC alerts when you have many journals you are trying to track. For email alerts you often have to register with the database whereas with RSS you only have to have one account--the one with your RSS reader. Also RSS will not clutter up your inbox.