Current Awareness for Chemists

 

The challenge of a vast and growing ocean of literature is to find your wave and stay on. 

 

To do this, you need good tools. The choice will  depend on your own interests and preferences.

 

The following are some of the useful resources that you can choose from:

 

·       Publishers’ Sites

·       Abstract Databases, such as Web of Science

·       Current Contents (staff-mediated)

·       Infotrieve

 


 

Journal Publishers’ Sites

 

Major journal publishers now offer alerting services.  These typically send email or an RSS feed to alert you to new articles in your field, based on a profile that you have set up.

 

Advantages:

 

·       Timely:  sent out close to publication, or even sooner (articles in press)

 

·       Abstracts are generally available

 

·       If UNH has an online subscription, and you are on campus or connecting via VPN, a click connects you to the articles

 

·       Easy to turn on and off, but must do so at every publisher’s site.

 

·       Some sites allow a precise search strategy for alerts, rather than full tables-of-contents (ex. Elsevier’s ScienceDirect)

 

 

Disadvantages:

·       You must register and create a profile for each publisher that publishes journals or topics you want to follow

 

·       Alerts are mainly available just for journal literature, at present (in chemistry)

 

·       Some publishers (like ACS) do not have search strategies linked to alerts, so you are notified of all articles in a journal

 

·       Alerts on citations to an article are limited to those on the publisher’s site

 

Examples:

 

American Chemical Society*

Email Alerts and RSS Feeds

(by journal title and Articles ASAP)

http://pubs.acs.org/alerts/index.html

 

 

Elsevier (ScienceDirect)*

Alerts (Email and RSS)

(by journal title or saved search)

http://www.sciencedirect.com/

 

 

Royal Society of Chemistry*

E-Alerts; RSS Feeds

http://www.rsc.org/Publishing/Journals/Index.asp

 

 

Springer

SpringerAlerts and RSS

Email and RSS for books, journals and volumes in series

After registering:

http://www.springer.com/alert/

http://www.springer.com/rss/  (books)

Note: For journal RSS, go to online journal page, right-click on RSS symbol, and copy the link into your feed reader

 

Wiley*

Email & RSS (by journal title or saved search)

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com

 

 

*For these publishers, UNH has current access online to all or some journals

-------------------------------------------------------

Illustration:  ACS ASAP article alert, sent to my email

 

ASAP Alert

The following ASAP articles were posted to the ACS Web Edition of
Journal of Physical Chemistry B
October 02, 2008.

 

 

Liquid−Vapor Equilibrium of the Systems Butylmethylimidazolium Nitrate−CO2 and Hydroxypropylmethylimidazolium Nitrate−CO2 at High Pressure: Influence of Water on the Phase Behavior
M. Dolores Bermejo, Marta Montero, Elisa Saez, Louw J. Florusse, Aleksandra J. Kotlewska, M. José Cocero, Fred van Rantwijk, and Cor J. Peters
http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/jp802540j

 

Physical and Electrochemical Properties of N-Alkyl-N-methylpyrrolidinium Bis(fluorosulfonyl)imide Ionic Liquids: PY13FSI and PY14FSI
Qian Zhou, Wesley A. Henderson, Giovanni B. Appetecchi, Maria Montanino, and Stefano Passerini
http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/jp805419f

 

 

 

 


 

Abstract Databases

 

Web of Science and others

 

These online databases cover journals and in some cases, other types of literature, from many publishers and countries.  If the Library subscribes to the database, as a UNH community member, you can register and set up a personal profile for alerts. 

 

Advantages:

·       Additional indexing that’s added can make alerts more precise, so you may be more likely to get citations that fit your needs

 

·       A wide variety of publishers provides better coverage of the literature

 

·       If non-journal literature is covered, that can provide more breadth (not always desirable)

 

·       Citations can be easily downloaded, whether or not articles are available at UNH

 

·       Easy to turn on and off, can add alerts for multiple journals from different publishers

 

·       Alerts on citations can encompass a broad range of publications

 

·       Can use “Find It @ UNH” within database to access article easily, if we subscribe

 

Disadvantages:

·       Time for indexing makes these resources slower, although important journals are fast-tracked

 

·       Articles-in-press (pre-publication) are not covered.

 

·       Some platforms are complicated

 

·       If UNH does not subscribe, information may have to be entered into an ILL or Infotrieve form.

 

Examples:

 

CA Selects Web

UNH does not subscribe.  CA Selects in print is available to individual subscribers.

For more info, http://www.cas.org/products/print/selects/selects.html

 

INSPEC*

Physics, plus electrical engineering & computing.

Save searches, create alerts based on search strategies, RSS feeds

http://www.library.unh.edu/scripts/redirect.pl?dbase=185

Web of Science*

Interdisciplinary.  Offers alerts based on search strategies and on citations (within Web of Science database)

http://www.library.unh.edu/scripts/redirect.pl?dbase=126

 

SciFinder Scholar* does not have alerts in the client version we are using.  The new web version has a limited “Keep Me Posted” feature.  SciFinder Scholar does offer Table of Contents browsing, so you can set a list of favorite journals to browse and conveniently access any that have UNH subscriptions.

 

*Available at UNH

 

 

_________________________________

 

Current Contents

 

Current Contents offers very precise searching

within an interdisciplinary database. 

 

UNH has only single-user access to Current Contents

 

Library staff (Bob or Emily) work with you to set up search strategies. The strategies run automatically and Bob will forward the results each week or two. 

 

Current Contents utilizes same database as Web of Science, but it allows you to specify broad categories, which helps to limit the context in which search terms are used.  There is no limit on the number of alternative terms, synonyms, or terms of different types (topic, author, author affiliation, discipline) you can combine

 

Results are emailed to you and can be sent as received in HTML or text, or in a formatted bibliography, or in an EndNote library.

 

UNH has two sections of Current Contents:

·       Physical, Chemical and Earth Sciences (1280 journals)

·       Engineering, Computing, and Technology (1250 journals)

 

For lists of the journals covered:

http://scientific.thomsonreuters.com/mjl/

 

Advantages:

 

·       Complex search strategies, including category specifications, limit retrieval to relevant articles

 

·       Covers journals of many different publishers

 

·       Articles-in-press are included for some online journals (“e-first coverage”)

 

·       Library staff maintain and renew your alerts

 

·       You can receive alerts in different formats

 

·       Author addresses are included

 

Disadvantages:

 

·       Alerts from Current Contents are somewhat slower than publishers’ web sites

 

·       Only journals are covered, no proceedings

 

·       Links do not work directly, due to single-user access

 

Sample Current Contents alert (with tags):

 

*Record 10 of 22. Search terms matched: IRON(5); MOSSBAUER(2)

*Order Full Text: [ ]

PT J

L5 http://gateway.isiknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcAuth=Alerting&SrcApp=Alerting&DestApp=CCC&DestLinkType=FullRecord&KeyUT=ISI:000234132600014

TI Stable and metastable iron silicide phases on Si(100)

AU Dezsi, I

   Fetzer, C

   Szucs, I

   Dekoster, J

   Vantomme, A

   Caymax, M

SO SURFACE SCIENCE

LA English

DT Article

AB The formation of iron silicide and the reaction in interface between Fe and Si(l 00) were investigated by conversion electron Mossbauer spectroscopy. Depending on the thickness of the iron film (3-20 ML), different phases were observed. The reaction rate between Fe and Si was also thickness dependent. Depending on the Fe thickness and on the annealing temperature, stable (epsilon-FeSi, beta-FeSi2) and metastable (disordered, c-FeSi) phases were formed. At 3 ML iron thickness an amorphous phase with hyperfine interaction parameters characteristic to that of amorphous iron silicide phase with 50 at.% Si content appeared. The parameter values of this phase changed significantly around 673 K indicating the transformation of the structure close to that of epsilon-FeSi. At 8 and 20 ML Fe thicknesses magnetic split spectra with distribution were detected. After annealing, metastable c-FeSi, stable epsilon-FeSi and at higher temperature stable epsilon-FeSi2 phases were formed. (c!

 ) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

SN 0039-6028

PY 2005

PD DEC 30

VL 599

IS 1-3

BP 122

EP 127

PG 6

GA 995VN

ER 

 

____________________________________

 

Infotrieve

http://www.library.unh.edu/services/infotrieve/

Last but not least, the UNH Library currently provides Infotrieve, a document delivery service in addition to InterLibrary Loan for graduate students and faculty.  

 

Infotrieve offers a Table of Contents service, through which journal articles can be ordered directly and sent to you.

 

Advantages:

 

·       Huge:  if UNH does not subscribe to the journal, this is very convenient as the citation does not have to be re-typed, a major advantage

 

Disadvantages

 

·       Some publishers are slow to send articles to Infotrieve, so Infotrieve alerts may be delayed in contrast to publisher alerts

 

·       All alerts are Tables-of-Contents; there are no search strategy or citation alerts

__________________________________________

Thanks for your time! 

We hope this helps you.

 

If you have further questions afterwards,

please contact us:

 

Bob Constantine,

Chemistry Library Associate

UNH Chemistry Library

862-1083

rjc3@cisunix.unh.edu

 

Emily Poworoznek,

Engineering & Physical Sciences Librarian

Associate Professor

UNH Library (Office at Engineering/Math/CS Library)

862-4168

el@unh.edu

 

This page is available on the Chemistry Links page, accessible from the Chemistry Library web site:

 

http://www.library.unh.edu/branches/chemgide.html