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Current Awareness

Information on how to receive the latest information on your area of interest

A Medline alert is a database search set to run at predetermined intervals and send you the new results.

 

To set up a Medline or Embase alert

1. Access Medline ( or any other database) through the library homepage.

  • Select your institution to ensure full text access.

2. In Ovid Medline set up an account.. This allows you to save your search and set up your alert.

  • This can be useful for other reasons too, for example when you want to return to a project at a later date without rewriting your search again, or to share searches between colleagues.     

3. Create a search. Try to find a search broad enough to capture new material, but without too much redundant material.

eg ((reduc* or prevent* or avoid* or minimis*) adj2 fall*).ti. for articles about falls prevention.

The search works best using text words. Newly published material will not have MeSH terms added yet. 

4. Save your search. When saving, choose the Autoalert option. 

 OR 

5. From the Actions dropdown to the right of your search history select Create Auto-Alert. ​

6. Select your options

  • Scheduling Options choose how you want to receive your alert – weekly, monthly, etc.
    • Tick the Deduping Options box to avoid material repeating (eg as articles go from epub ahead of print to fully published).
    • If you want your alert on Monday morning set it to run on Sunday. Ovid is on US time.
  • Delivery Options - enter your preferred email at (can be multiple recipients).
    • Modify the format of the citations you receive using the Fields>>Custom fields option. Title, abstract, author and source gives you a nice concise email.
    • In Report Type, option 2 ‘Email includes records, a Results Display Link, and a link to each record's Fulltext or Complete Reference Display’ will give you a full text link to the article in the alert email.

If you require any assistance setting up a subject alert contact the library.

 

PubMed alerts

  • Create a free NCBI account.
  • Perform a search to identify relevant articles
  • Create alert option is below search box.
  • Sign in and select options for alerts.
  • Full text linking is available if you access PubMed via the library webpage.