“Be on the alert, like the red ant that moves with
its claws wide open.” -- African Proverb
The blessing and the curse of the age we live in is the extraordinary amount of
information that is available to us, at our literal fingertips.
The challenge we face is to learn how to swim in this sea of information
without drowning in it.
Organizations, from academia to corporate, subscribe to various databases that
offer access to huge numbers of peer reviewed articles. That helps provide
access to the sea of information, but it leaves us with the information
overload problem.
Creating alerts is one of the tools we have at our disposal to deal with this
problem.
The vendors offering information access include ScienceDirect, ACS-American
Chemical Society, IEEE Explore, IHS, to name a few. Each vendor offers an
“alerts” feature.
The problem is, each vendor has its own procedure. And each vendor has its own
way of licensing its content to end users.
It is not unusual for smaller organizations to opt for the minimum number of
licenses available, in order to make the subscription affordable. This approach is understandable. But it
creates a gatekeeper
system which can erode the value of the agreement your organization makes with
the vendor.
Here is a strategy to help your organization maximize ROI-Return on Investment
in its database subscriptions. The strategy enables you to bypass the
cumbersome vendor requirements for setting up alerts, while still preserving
the value of your organization’s database subscription.
The Gatekeeper
Strategy
- IDENTIFY your gatekeeper. In some cases, that will be a librarian. That would be ideal, but not necessary, as long as you know who the gatekeeper is
- CREATE Google Scholar alerts (https://scholar.google.com/ )
- CONTACT your gatekeeper when an alert has an item of interest to determine whether the full text of the article is available via your subscribed database(s)
- ASK your gatekeeper to download and send to you the article you want to read
TIP: If
you happen to be a gatekeeper, let your people
know, and encourage them to contact you whenever they need full text of an
article of interest. They will love you for it.
For example … one of my recent Google Scholar alerts included the following
item …
///////
Data governance
in smart factories: Consistency rules for improved data quality in logistics
& operations
Department of Industrial
Engineering, Alma Mater Studiorum – Bologna University, Viale Risorgimento 2,
40136 Bologna, Italy
Received 29 December 2022, Revised 5 July 2023, Accepted 31 July 2023,
Available online 7 August 2023, Version of Record 11 August 2023.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2213846323000524
///////
IF my organization subscribes to
ScienceDirect, and IF I know who my gatekeeper is, I can contact him/her to request a
download of the full text of the article. I am able to do so without going
through the process of creating an alert within the ScienceDirect system.
This becomes even more useful when your organization subscribes to more than
database. With ONE Google Scholar
Alert, you are covering ALL of the
major databases … and a lot of the smaller ones, as well.
///////
Google® Better!
Jean Steinhardt served as Librarian,
Aramco Americas (https://americas.aramco.com/
), Engineering Division, for 13 years. He now heads Jean Steinhardt Consulting
LLC, producing the same high quality research that he performed for Aramco.
Follow Jean’s blog at: http://desulf.blogspot.com/
for continuing tips on effective online research
Email Jean at jstoneheart@gmail.com with
questions on research, training, or anything else
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