Nature alerts & iPhones

You can now be alerted to the latest news and research from Nature journals by setting up a nature.com app on your iPhone. This allows you to either access the full-text of an article immediately or save it for reading later. The app will also allow you to save a search and then receive PubMed alerts (weven though you're a Nature.com app) based on your selection of keywords.

Keeping Current: Summary of Survey Results

Thanks to everyone who took part in the Current Awareness Survey which was organised by members of Level 4 Library Staff. The results have given us a clearer picture of how you prefer to keep up to date with research. This will help inform the recommendations we make and the content of training sessions.

Our survey focused on alerts that individuals set up via databases or publisher websites. To set these up, individuals can identify individual journal titles in order to receive the latest tables of contents (TOC). Alternatively, they can identify an author, citation or set of keywords in order to receive references from a wide range of journals. Here's a summary of the results:

• The most popular alerts: Web of Science and those set up directly from publisher website are most widely used although both received mixed reviews for intuitiveness and quality. Pub Med and Zetoc were amongst services that received the most positive feedback. Researchers are using a huge range of individual journal alerts as well as broader one-stop-shop alerts from databases.
  
• Perceived benefit of alerts: 80% of respondents were positive. They perceived alerts as being quick and easy to set up, providing relevant results and a useful overview of a topic. They also enable serendipity in searching and sometimes provide links.
  
• Perceived problems of alerts: they're slow, complex and irrelevant, lacking both breadth and throughness. They also create information overload & were difficult for staff to fit into their workload.
  
• Waiting... The average user is prepared to wait up for to two weeks post-publication to receive an alert (and is prepared for 5% of alerts never to arrive). However, this average disguises a wide range of opinion.
  
• Other results: 76% would prefer to receive alerts as emails rather than via a feed reader. The most popular alternatives for keeping up-to-date were conferences and review articles.
  
• Comments: Where there were comments on the Library’s online resources, most were positive, although some respondents were unaware that the Library were responsible for providing these resources.
  
• Our own data suggests... Ultimately, getting alerts direct from each publisher provides the fastest, most reliable source, but this is more labour-intensive to set up and monitor than using a one-stop database. Of the databases, Zetoc or Web of Science may prove a better choice if you're more interested in thorough coverage and less concerned about speed, If you want to receive alerts quickly and aren't concerned about the occational alert not arriving, you may prefer to use ELIN.

If you would like to see a full report, please contact me P.G.Bradley@bath.ac.uk

Information Sessions for Academics & Postgraduates

The Library is running a series of information sessions for academic staff and postgraduate students over the Summer including a session on Self-Archiving and the University Repository. The following sessions all take place in the Library (to book your place, find out more information or to suggest topics for future sessions, please send an email to: library-sessions ). Of course not everyone can visit the Library so please do contact me if you have any questions on any of the topics covered.

15th August 1415-1545: Introduction to Copyright for teaching and research (for staff and postgraduates with teaching responsibilities): Guidelines for what you can and cannot copy or make available for your classes in your teaching. The session covers copyright regulations with reference to developments in Creative Commons Licencing.

22nd August, 1415-1545: Keeping up to date: Identifies alerting services to keep abreast of developments in your field of research. Mainly covering the use of RSS newsfeeds but also Table of Contents alerting services (ZETOC), identification of email lists and conferences etc.

29th August, 1415-1545: Who’s Citing Whom? Want to know who is citing articles you’ve written, or trace developments since a particular article was published? Help with citation searching within the Web of Science and using Journal Citation Reports to find journal impact factors.

4th September, 1015-1145: Self Archiving and the University Repository: Of interest to those publishing articles and papers. The institutional repository is a store for full-text papers and materials from members of an organisation such as a university. It allows research to be preserved and show-cased, and helps improve article citation rates. It also helps researchers to meet funding body requirements to make their research publicly available.

Details of the series can be found on our library webpages under the Help section entitled Research & Information Training at http://www.bath.ac.uk/library/subjects/sessions07.html

Training: keeping up to date with information

The Library is offering a series of research skills sessions for teaching staff & postgraduate students. Details of upcoming sessions are given below. To book a place on any of these courses or find out more information please send an email to or check the following webpage for more information: http://www.bath.ac.uk/library/subjects/sessions07.html

Who's Citing Whom?
7th March, 1615-1730:
Library Level 5 West Training Room
Want to know who is citing articles you’ve written, or trace developments since a particular article was published? A session on citation searching with the Web of Science and using Journal Citation Reports to find journal impact factors.

Keeping up to date
14th March, 1615-1730
Library Level 5 West Training Room
Session identifies alerting services to keep abreast of developments in your field of research.

Plagiarism for Academic Staff (for staff with teaching responsibilities)
26th March, 1030-1200
Library Level 4 Meeting Room
Looking at what plagiarism is and the different forms it can take, how to help students avoid it and ideas on how it can be detected.

Introduction to Copyright for teaching and research (for staff with teaching responsibilities)
2nd April, 1030-1200
Library Level 4 Meeting Room
Confused, concerned or unaware of the rules relating to copying? This session for research and teaching staff aims to show what copying is allowed by current University licences.