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Staying up to date: Alerting & current awareness services: Websites

This guide provides information about how to set up alerts to be notified of new information in your field across resources such as journals, books, websites, conferences, research data and funding.

Tracking changes on the web

There are a number of tools available that can keep you updated when something changes on the web. Some are available via websites and others provide desktop software. These sites can track changes to:

  • web pages and sites
  • search engine results
  • news sites & blogs
  • discussion lists, groups and email lists

Below are services that provide some or all services for free.

Search results

Like database search alerts, these search engines allow you to save search alerts so you can be notified of any new results matching your search terms.

Web page changes - Web based

The following sites and tools allow you to track web pages or sites and notify you by email of any changes to the sites you are monitoring.

Social Media

Social media such as Twitter can also be good places to keep up to date. Follow people and groups that are involved in topics that interest you.

Blogs

Blogs usually have alerts through email or RSS feed. Many blogs can also be followed on Twitter and Facebook.

You can search Google for your topic/discipline and blogs to find them. Also listed below are some blog indexes and search tools.

Discussion lists, groups & email lists

Join discussion lists, groups or email lists in your field to be kept up to date with developments in your field. Some will include job listings or conference alerts as well as more general discussions.

You can also search Google for topics of interest and include search terms such as "discussion list", "mailing list" or listserv to find more relevant lists from universities, organisations and other relevant groups.

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