Journal Alerts & Search Alerts:

Journal Alerts

Journal alerts will notify you through e-mails or RSS notifications when new items are published in a journal. You may receive a table of contents for the journal, or a table of contents and abstracts of the articles, depending on how the journal chooses to share the information or how you have set up the alert.

This page focuses on how to set up journal alerts in the EBSCO and ProQuest company databases.

Many other databases offer the option to set up alerts. Look around the journal page for links that may say alert, ToC Alert, RSS, or Share, among others. You may need to create a free account with the database company to access the alerts feature. If you aren’t finding a way to set up alerts in these other databases, contact us through Ask a Librarian for help.

Locate the journal

Before you can set up a journal alert, you need to locate the journal for which you’d like to create an alert.

1. To locate journals, click on the Publications button on the Library homepage.
   
   
    

2. Enter the title of the journal in the Find a journal by title box on the Journals & Articles page.
   
   
    
3. Click Search to find databases that have the journal available.
4. You will see one or more database links if we have access to a journal. Click on a database link to access the journal in that database.
   
   
    
5. Note: If there are multiple database links listed, this means the journal is available in more than one database. Check the availability dates for the journal listed by the database link to make sure new issues will be available through the database you have chosen.
    

Set up the journal alert

In EBSCO databases, click the Share link to open a new box and set up your alert.

 

In ProQuest databases, click on the Create alert or Create RSS feed link to open a new box and set up your alert.

 

Once you’ve chosen to click either an email or RSS alert option link, follow the prompts to finish setting up the alert.

Depending on the database and option you have chosen, you will select preferences, such as how frequently you would like to be alerted, length of time to receive alerts, and type of article information to receive.

• For e-mail alerts, you may need to set up a personal account in that database to use the alert feature. Because this account is a personal account between you and the database company, you can use any e-mail that you want.

Note: The Library does not have access to these accounts or passwords, so you’ll want to keep track of your account information.  

• For RSS feeds, copy the link generated by the database and enter the link information into your RSS feed reader. Want more information about RSS and feed readers?  See our RSS page in this guide.

See how to create a journal alert by watching this short video.