Alerting Services

For years the staff of the Business Library sent out copies of the tables of contents from the print journals received in the library. Faculty in particular disciplines or "Area Groups" would choose relevant journals and the arrival of the latest table of contents would alert them to new articles related to their interests. Now there are more efficient electronic methods that will allow you to keep abreast of the latest intellectual and academic developments. It is our purpose here to introduce you to some "alerting services" and provide short tutorials that show you how to use them.

There are various kinds of "alerts". Some provide the table of contents for your favourite journal(s)or alert you to the publication of a new book. Others will send you citation alerts when a subject or author or citation of relevance appears in the literature. As well, you can choose to receive alerts which consist of results based on searches you have saved and which are run at specified intervals. We provide below, samples of services that will send alerts directly to you. With each we offer a short demonstration on how to set them up.

We have some suggestions. First; choose a source that best matches your interests. We have arranged the services into categories and we are available to offer assistance. Second: although we provide a number of suggestions below, some overlap in terms of coverage and, for most purposes, one well-chosen alerting service will be sufficient . Third: some of the resources below may alert you to journals or publications for which you are asked to pay. Before you do so, make sure that the Western Libraries does not have a subscription to the publication or that it is not available via our RACER service. And finally, "beware the bacn". That is not a mis-spelling. Bacn (bacon) is as fattening as spam and an indiscriminate use of multiple services can result in a mail box bloated with as many e-mail messages that you have solicited as those which are unsolicited. As well, be careful when constructing search alerts and avoid broad subjects (management) or common author surnames (Jones).

There are around 30 services listed here and they were generally chosen to support academic disciplines related to business and management. Those interested in other areas should consult with the appropriate subject librarian or use related sources such as this one produced by the staff in the Taylor Library: "Keeping Current With Scholarly Literature"

Powerpoint Instructions Website Starting Point

Omnibus Sites

These platforms provide broad access to the scholarly literature across all academic disciplines.

Scopus This resource offers citations and abstracts for millions of scholarly records ranging across many disciplines.
ScienceDirect This resource aggregates journals and research works and also covers the Social Sciences and Humanities.
Web of Knowledge This platform is multi-disciplinary, providing access to scholarly literature from a huge number of information resources.

Aggregator Databases

ProQuest Proquest provides access to a large number of databases. Those interested in alerts relating to academic business literature will find ABI/INFORM Global to be a useful resource.
EconLit The American Economics Association produces this massive economics bibliography.
IngentaConnect This service covers many subjects and which now offers over 23 million articles from over 30,000 publications.
EBSCOhost The Western Libraries subscribes to some EBSCO databases.

University-Related Publishers/Providers

These databases are published or produced in association with colleges or universities and the alerts will typically be of an academic nature.

Cambridge Journals Using this resource you will gain access to the information contained in over 230 journals published by the Cambridge University Press that cover 32 subject areas.
CIAO Columbia International Affairs Online is produced by Columbia University and it is the source for scholarly journals and working papers relating to international affairs.
ICPSR This acronym refers to the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research. It has been archiving data relating to the Social Sciences since 1962.
Oxford Journals This service provides you with a convenient starting point to the information contained in the periodicals published by the Oxford University Press.
Project Muse Associated with the Johns Hopkins University Press, this online resource offers over 250 journals from non-profit or university presses such as the University of Toronto Press. Although many of the titles relate to the humanities, business scholars should not titles such as Advertising & Society Review and the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity.

Government Produced Databases

International Monetary Fund The IMF produces a considerable amount of financial and economic data and using this resource you can be alerted to developments occurring in the country(ies) in which you are interested.
SourceOECD This is the site of the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development and from it you can be alerted whenever new material relating to your research is added to the OECD database.

Publishers

American Psychological Association This service can be used to notify you when your favourite psychology journal has been published.
Blackwell Synergy Over 850 journals are accessible via this site and there are many business journals among them. For example, The British Journal of Management and Decision Sciences. Blackwell is now part of Wiley and ultimately this platform may become part of:
Wiley InterScience This site contains a large number of journals and reference sources of an interdisciplinary nature.
Emerald Emerald is a British-based publisher of over 180 titles, many of which relate to management and library science.
Informaworld The journals and reference titles available through this site include those published by Taylor & Francis, Routledge and Psychology Press and others.
Sage Publications Accessible here are almost 500 journals in fields relating to Business, Humanities, Social Sciences, and Science, Technology and Medicine.

Specialized Business Alerting Services

Asia Studies This resource covers most of the Asia-Pacific region and if you sign up they will send a monthly newsletter.
Economist Intelligence Unit From our suite of EIU products, you can choose to receive the weekly Global Business Portfolio which will keep you informed about major international issues.
The Economist Access to The Economist is available through the suite of EIU resources mentioned above.
eMarketer This aggregator of IT-related information will provide you will a daily newsletter covering the internet, online information and e-business and selected other media.
Forrester Research This IT resource will keep you abreast of technological developments
Freedonia Freedonia is a market research firm that produces major reports on a wide variety of industries. You will be apprised of new studies. Our subscription provides short versions of these reports covering 18 industry sectors.
MintelOxygen Those interested in market research can customize this site to focus on particular areas of interest.

This guide was prepared by L. Veronese. Questions or suggestions can be sent to buslib@ivey.uwo.ca.