What is notification?
Notification has highly improved the possibilities to keep informed about developments in various disciplines, and receiving alerts to new publications.
Notification has highly improved the possibilities to keep informed about developments in various disciplines, and receiving alerts to new publications.
Personal vs. impersonal
Notification enables users to receive updates at set times about new publications in their department of interest. Notification can be personal or impersonal.
- Impersonal notification, for instance, are the internet topicalities which are sent weekly by e-mail to all staff of the Faculty of Law.
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Personal
notification is activated by the user himself by entering a combination of search terms (a personal profile of interest). Whereupon the catalogue in question or the file will perform the search combination at set times to see if new publications have been added to that system. This service is also referred to as selective dissemination of information of current awareness.
Publishing houses
Publishing houses also provide notification services.
They offer persons interested the opportunity to keep informed about their new editions, books and journals.
In addition, certain publishers offer you the possibility to receive a table of content (TOC). The interested party should register with the publishing house, and fill out on a form which discipline or journals have preference. They will then receive a news letter with recent publications or a list of TOCs.
How?
Notification usually takes place via e-mail.
A different option is RSS (Really Simple Syndication). RSS uses the internet metalanguage XML. RSS files are often used to syndicate text on websites. In other words, RSS allows access of such text to a large number of consumers. Using an RSS-reader to read text on websites saves the internet user browsing time. These programmes are designed for internet users who want to receive updates about their field of interest on the internet. Not all sites have RSS feeds however; RSS is mainly used in websites that are frequently updated such as news sites, community sites and weblogs.