eTOC (Table of Contents) alerting services

Many publishers allow users to sign up to a free alerting service which emails the table of contents of journal issues to you, whenever an issue is published. Usually a link is available from the journal home page from where you can sign up for the service.

There are also options to sign up for Tables of Contents from lots of journals at once:

• JournalTocs is a free online service which provides tables of contents and offers RSS feeds for new content, for over 16 000 journals.  It will email you with details of new articles as they are published and often includes an abstract.
• Zetoc is a service through which you can set up table of contents email alerts for around 20,000 journals.You will need to log in with an ATHENS account.

Database search alerts

Once you have carried out a search in a bibliographic database such as MEDLINE or CINAHL you can save your search and set up an auto-alert.

When the databases are updated you will automatically be notified - by getting an email or through an RSS feed - when new content is added which fits your original search.

This feature is available from all healthcare databases.

You need to conduct your search, and then click on "save" then "save and create alert". You can select the format and frequency of the alert. You should contact your local healthcare library for support with setting up these alerts.

Current awareness bulletins

A number of health library services produce current awareness bulletins, containing articles and news.

See Londonlinks Current Awareness section and East Midlands Current Awareness Bulletins for examples.