Current Awareness for Environment and Energy

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Current Awareness for Environment and Energy

• Nadine Hoffman
• Natural Resources, Energy Environmental Law
  Librarian
• Leeanne Morrow
• ISEEE and Engineering Librarian

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Agenda for today

• Research Databases
• Table of Contents
• Search Alerts
• RSS Feeds
• Research Databases
• Websites
• Blogs

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Definitions

• Citation alerts
• known as author alerts
• allows one to receive information when a work has
  been cited in a particular database
• separate session at FTD
• Search alerts
• known as keyword alerts
• previously run search will be automatically run
  in a database with the results of new items to be
  available
• Table of Contents (TOC) alerts
• known as new issue alerts or publication alerts
• receive information when a journal is available
  in a particular database, often with the TOC for
  the issue included

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Research Database Alerts

• ABI Inform Global (ProQuest)
• No registration required
• OMNIFile Mega (Wilson)
• No registration required
• Oxford Journals (Oxford)
• Registration required
• Environment Complete (EBSCO)
• Registration required

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RSS

• RSS is a family of Web feed formats used to
  publish frequently updated content such as blog
  entries, news headlines, and podcasts.
• RSS makes it possible for people to keep up with
  web sites in an automated manner that can be
  piped into special programs or filtered displays.
  

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What e-formats have feeds?

• Regular websites (news)
• Blogs
• Research Databases

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Why feeds are great

• Consolidated content in one single location
• Its like having your own personalized newspaper
  sent to you everyday
• Rather than visiting all the websites/blogs/databa
  ses you are interesting in every day you can
  subscribe to their feed and have that website
  send its updates into one single aggregator/feed
  reader.

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What is a feed readers

• Web application that aggregates all your blogs,
  websites, database searches etc. into one place
  for you to view
• Can be desktop software or web based

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Web based feed readers

• Bloglines
• Google Reader
• NewsGator
• My Yahoo

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So how does this work?

• 1. Subscribe to a feed reader
• 2. Choose your websites/blogs or construct your
  database search and then copy and paste a link
  into your feed reader
• 3. Your feed reader will check your feeds
  regularly for new content and update
  automatically
• 4. You can login from anywhere and view your
  content updates. If you use it to sent up a
  database feed and you login in from off campus
  you will need to authenticate.

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What does a feed reader look like?

• http//www.bloglines.com/

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Feeds from websites

• The Chronicle of Higher Education
• http//chronicle.com/

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What about blogs

• A blog (an abridgment of the term web log) is a
  website, usually maintained by an individual,
  with regular entries of commentary, descriptions
  of events, or other material such as graphics or
  video.
• Entries are commonly displayed in reverse
  chronological order. "Blog" can also be used as a
  verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a
  blog www.wikipedia.com

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Blog stats

• 112.8 million blogs
• Over 20,000 of these have a science tag
• Its estimated that only 1,000-1,200 are authored
  by faculty, graduate students, science teachers
  etc. and have authoritative/engaging opinions
• Bonetta, L., Scientists enter the Blogosphere.
  Cell, 4 May 2007.

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Why blog?

• Common format of communicating
• Introduces the general public to science
• Open forums for discussion among scientists
• Helps to frame information for different
  audiences

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How do you find them?

• http//www.scienceblogs.com/
• Launched in January 2006, ScienceBlogs is a
  portal to this global dialogue, a digital science
  salon featuring the leading bloggers from a wide
  array of scientific disciplines. Today,
  ScienceBlogs is the largest online community
  dedicated to science.

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• www.technorati.com
• Technorati is the recognized authority on what's
  happening on the World Live Web, right now. The
  Live Web is the dynamic and always-updating
  portion of the Web.
• We search, surface, and organize blogs and the
  other forms of independent, user-generated
  content (photos, videos, voting, etc.)
  increasingly referred to as citizen media.

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Contact Information

• Nadine Hoffman
• nadine.hoffman_at_ucalgary.ca or 220-8392
• Leeanne Morrow
• leeanne.morrow_at_ucalgary.ca or 220-8953