Current Awareness Tools: Email Alerts

When you create an email alert for a database, like PubMed, or journal, you will receive an email when an article that meets your search criteria or a new issue of the journal is published.  Several types of email alerts are available:

• Journal Table of Contents (TOC) Alerts: Receive the latest TOC in your inbox each time a new issue of a journal is published.
• Search Alerts: Database will automatically run your saved search and deliver the latest results to your email on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.
• Citation Alerts: Receive an email when your saved citations are cited by another article.  

Many journals offer Table of Contents (TOC) email alerts.  You may be asked to create an account to receive alerts. 

To create a Journal TOC alert from journal's website:

• Find the journal's website.  Look for a link to "E-Alert Sign Up", "Issue Alert" or "Create an Account".  If you are having trouble locating an alert link, then scroll to the bottom of the page and look for an alert link under "Services".
• Enter your email address or create an account and you will begin to receive emails when the latest TOC becomes available

PubMed

My NCBI

• My NCBI is a personalized account integrated with PubMed that allows you to save searches, citations, create a personal bibliography and manage your search filters
• Create a My NCBI account by clicking the link in the upper right corner of the PubMed homepage 
  • Sign-in using your Duke NetID and password, eRA Commons account information, Gmail account information 

Create search alert

• Sign-in to your My NCBI account
• Run search in PubMed, choose any filters you wish to apply to your search
• Click the "Create alert" link below the search box
• Name your search and click "Save"
• You will be asked "would you like to receive email updates?", choose "Yes, please" and select the frequency, day, format and number of items you would like to receive
• Click "Save"
• You will begin to receive emails when new citations that meet your search criteria become available

Create journal alert

• Sign-in to your My NCBI account, click on the "Advanced" link below the search box in PubMed
• In a search Builder box, select "Journal" from the drop-down menu
• Start typing the name of the journal and select the title from list of suggestions that appear
• Click "Search"
• On the results page, click the "Save search" link below the search box
• Change the name of your search if you wish and click "Save"
• You will be asked "would you like to receive email updates?", choose "Yes, please" and select the frequency, day, format and number of items you would like to receive.  Note: Journal publication schedules vary.  Choose "Daily" for frequency to ensure that you get articles as soon as they are released.
• Click "Save"
• You will begin to receive emails when new citations that meet your search criteria become available

CINAHL

My EBSCOHost

• My EBSCOHost is a personalized account for EBSCO databases (CINAHL, PsycInfo, ERIC, etc.) to save searches, citations and create search alerts
• Create a My EBSCOHost account by clicking the "Sign in" link in the upper right corner of the menu bar in CINAHL

Create search alert

• Sign-in to your My EBSCO Host account
• Run search in CINAHL, choose any filters that you wish to apply to your search
• Click the "Alert/Save'Share" link in the right corner of your search results 
• A drop-down tab will appear; under "Create an alert", choose "Email alert" and select the frequency, time period and format of items you would like to receive
• Click "Save Alert"
• You will begin to receive emails when new citations that meet your search criteria become available

Web of Science

Web of Knowledge Account

• A Web of Knowledge account allows you to save searches, access EndNote Web, and create search and citation alerts for Web of Science and other Thomson Reuters databases (BIOSIS Citation Index, Journal Citation Reports)
• Create an account by clicking the "Sign in" link on the menu bar in Web of Science

Create search alert

• Sign-in to your Web of Knowledge account
• Run search in Web of Science, choose any filters that you wish to apply to your search
• Click the "Create Alert/RSS" button in the upper left corner of your results page
• Enter a name for your search, click the box next to "Email alerts" and select the type, format and frequency you would like to receive
• Click "Save"
• You will begin to receive emails when new citations that meet your search criteria become available

Create citation alert

• Sign-in to your Web of Knowledge account
• Perform a search for the article(s) for which you wish to receive citation alerts
• Click on the title of the article to view the full record
• In the box on the right side of the full record page, click "Create Citation Alert"
• The article will be added to your My Cited Articles list and you will automatically receive an email each time the article is cited
• To view and edit your citation alerts, click the "My Citation Alerts" link in the menu bar at the top of any Web of Science page

Google Scholar

Create search alerts

• Run search in Google Scholar, choose any filters that you wish to apply to your search
• Click the "Create alert" envelope icon in the left sidebar of your results page 
• Enter your email address and choose the number of results that you would like to receive per email
• Click "Create Alert"
• You will be asked to enter the words that you see in the box and click "Create Alert" again
• A verification email will be sent to your email address, click the confirmation link to in the email to begin to receiving alerts when new citations that meet your search criteria become available

Create citation alert

• Perform a search for the article for which you wish to receive citation alerts
• On the results page, click on the "Cited by ..." link below the article; a page with the list of articles that have cited your article will appear
• Click on the "Create alert" envelope icon in the left sidebar of the page
• Enter your email address and choose the number of results you would like to receive per email
• Click "Create Alert"
• You will be asked to enter the words that you see in the box and click "Create Alert" again
• A verification email will be sent to your email address, click the confirmation link to in the email to begin to receiving alerts when you article has been cited