CURRENT AWARENESS OPTIONS IN CHEMISTRY
Updated: 15 September 2000
How do you keep up with the book and journal literature
appearing in your fields of interest?
In this document are described several options broken into the
following categories:
I. Free services provided by library staff
II. Free services you may tap into
III. Current awareness options which cost you money
What do you do with the references to publications of
interest?
There is very good software available now for Macintosh and
IBM PCs to maintain personal interest databases. Several of the
current awareness options described in the attached document allow
you to easily import the records into such software. Once such a
personal database has been created, it is easy to export the
references from your database to a manuscript. Most packages even
include style sheets which will format the references in various
ways. See Gary Wiggins for details.
Indiana University Libraries
CURRENT AWARENESS OPTIONS:
CHEMISTRY LIBRARY AND
OTHER SCIENCE LIBRARIES
I. FREE Services Provided by IU Libraries Staff
A. Books: Weekly Acquisitions List
Provide us with your e-mail address and the
Chemistry Library will add you to the weekly distribution
list of books and review serials that are currently on
the New Book Shelf. The list will also be available on
the Chemistry Library gopher for one month. Contact
Jen Gerber (JELGERBE) for the Chemistry Library
booklist. Electronic forms of acquisitions lists can
also be received from the Life Sciences Library (Contact Roger
Beckman (BECKMANR), the Geology Library (Contact Dennis
Scoville: SCOVILL), and the Swain Hall Library (Send e-
mail request to: LIBSWAIN).
B. Periodicals: Daily Acquisitions List
A printed list is posted in the Current Periodicals
area of the Chemistry Library, and an e-mail version is
sent to each person who requests it. Contact:
Jen Gerber (JELGERBE).
C. Periodicals: References from Current Contents on
Diskette
An interest profile can be run against each diskette
of Current Contents: Physical, Chemical, and Earth
Sciences and other versions of Current Contents on
Diskette. The output will be sent to you over the campus
network. One advantage is that more journals are covered
in CCOD than we have in the Chemistry or other IU
libraries. See the complete list of coverage at:
http://www.isinet.com/journals/
Another advantage is the capability to obtain the
references in a format that will feed into your own
personal database software, e.g., Endnote. A
disadvantage is that there may be a few weeks delay
between the appearance of the journal issue and its entry
into a CCOD issue.
Request a CCOD profile
II. FREE Services You May Tap Into
A. CARL UnCover Reveal
You may connect directly to UnCover with any Internet
browser, including the connections on many of
the public PCs in the Chemistry Library. Once in the
UnCover database you have the option to search by Name or
Word, or you may Browse by journal title. For current
awareness, the Reveal option permits the establishment
of a profile with subjects, authors, or journal titles.
UnCover's major advantage as a current awareness
source is the titles are entered very quickly after being
published (less than a week).
B. Internet Journal Table-of-Contents Lists
Most publishers now put the tables of contents of their
journals on the Web at no charge. Some even include the
abstracts. There is even an e-mail table of contents
service provided by some publishers. For example:
Wiley's Future Contents: Genetics is updated every other
Thursday with tables of contents of ten Wiley journals in
genetics up to 6 weeks before print publication.
To subscribe, send the message:
SUBSCRIBE GENETICS firstname lastname
To: CONTENTS@Jwiley.com
To cancel, send the message:
CANCEL GENETICS firstname lastname
To: CONTENTS@Jwiley.com
III. Current Awareness Options Which Cost You Money
A. CA Surveyor - Chemical Abstracts Service's CD-ROMs
Quarterly updates on CD-ROM from the CAS database
are available for: Chromatography, Magnetic Resonance,
Organometallic Chemistry, Food and Feed Chemistry, and
Cancer Chemical Research. The quarterly updates contain
cumulative information for the year to date plus the
previous two years. It is available for both Windows and
Macintosh environments. Both abstracts and structures
are included in the output. Subscription cost is $995
for single-user licenses. Call 800-753-4227 for network
pricing information.
B. CA Selects and Other Standard Interest Profiles
Bi-weekly printed updates contain the same abstracts
found in the printed CA. There are about 250 separate
topics for which these standard interest profiles are
produced. All are listed in the latest Chemical
Abstracts Service Catalog. Other database
producers' products of this type can be found in Index to
Standard Interest Profiles in Science and Technology
(Z697.S5 I5 on reserve in Chemistry Library).
C. Periodicals and Other Types of Documents: CA File SDI
Service
The CA File is the bibliographic database
corresponding to the printed Chemical Abstracts.
Establishing an SDI profile for the database provides you
with bi-weekly updates sent direct to your e-mail
address. Since the CA File is not limited to journal
abstracts, you need to consider whether you also want
references to books, conference proceedings,
dissertations, patents and technical reports. The CA
File is not as up to date with respect to the current
literature as CCOD. Expect on the average a 2 - 2 1/2
month lag time before a citation enters the database.
Contact Gary Wiggins (WIGGINS) to establish a CA File
SDI profile.
D. CApreviews
Using the CApreviews database allows you to access
records 8-10 weeks before they enter the CA File database
or the printed Chemical Abstracts. See Gary Wiggins for
details.
E. Chemical Titles and Other Printed TOC Services
Nearly 800 leading chemical journals are covered in
the biweekly Chemical Titles. The Current Contents series of
weekly publications are similar to this product and cost
about the same. Both have author and subject indexes,
with listings shortly after the appearance of a journal
issue.
F. CAS Individual Search Service and Others
Custom interest profiles can be constructed to
produce biweekly updates from the Chemical Abstracts
Service database. Since it is tailored to your
individual interests, the cost is high compared to other
options.
BIOSIS offers its B-I-T-S (BIOSIS Information
Transfer System) on diskette for MS-DOS and Macintosh.
Data is taken from the Biological Abstracts database.
B-I-T-S can be used with bibliographic software programs
such as Pro-Cite or Reference Manager. Contact
biosis@a1.relay.upenn.edu or call 1-800-523-4806.
G. Reference Update
This update service offers several options to MS-DOS
and Macintosh users in the biosciences. Choose from a
400- or 1200-publication edition or the deluxe abstract
edition. Call 1-800-722-1227; Internet:
rminfo@ris.risinc.com.
Gary Wiggins 2/94 (updated 2/00)
CCIIM: 13-06.294