Advanced Research

Have you ever wished for a research assistant to find articles and book reviews for you?  Wish granted, my friends.

The majority of the electronic journal indexes (aka databases) that the library subscribes to offer personalized features that can save searches, run searches for you and send the results to an email address or RSS feed reader (on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis), or just give you a persistent link to that search.

Steps (using the MLA International Bibliography database):

1.) Create an account (FREE)  2.) Sign in and start searching 3.) When you've got the perfect search (brillantly refined), click "Alert/Save/Share."

Love Google?  Try Google Alerts and you can make Google work for you!

Google Alerts' Description:

"Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic.  If you have a Google account (such as email) you can have results sent to your Google Reader or any other RSS feed reader.

Enter the topic you wish to monitor, set the type of content that you want searched (everything, news, blogs, etc.), select how often you want to receive alerts, and then the volume (only the best or everything).  Click preview to see the type of results you'll receive.  An example is below - remember to use smart search techniques!