Database Tips: EBSCO RSS Feeds

I had every intention of blogging about the news when EBSCO announced that it would allow RSS feeds for its alert services, but, alas, I didn't. However, I now can attest to the value and ease of this service.

I decided that I wanted to receive alerts when several library and technology journals were issued. Since I have Google Reader as my feed aggregator and I have a MyEBSCOhost account set up already, it made it pretty easy to get this going.

Here are the steps:

1) Log in to Academic Search Premier (for me, this the database that has full-text access to most of the journals I wanted)

2) Click the Publications link

3) Browse for journals

4) Click the desired journal title

5) Click the Journal Alert link

6) Log in to MyEBSCOhost (if you haven't already)

7) Mark options, but choose "No e-mail (RSS only)"

8) Click "Save"

9) The confirmation screen will provide a URL that can be pasted into any RSS reader

Now I get notified whenever these journals are added to Academic Search Premier. I can read through the titles and sometimes abstracts and decide what to read further. It's a happy thing!

Just as an extra tip, you can also set up search alerts and be notified when an article matching your search criteria is added. You just have to run an Advanced Search on the topic, then click the Search History/Alerts tab, click "Save Searches / Alerts," then check that settings you want, click "Save," and you are good to go!


So, what are some things you've saved or would like to save? Do you have some particular searches or journals that yield helpful articles?