Current Awareness

There are many different ways to keep up with developments in your area.  You may track information by citation, keyword/subject or follow new issues of particular journals in your field.  Today, these updates might be available for delivery in various forms (e.g. e-mail, RSS, etc.).  Some resources also offer updates through their social media outlets such as Twitter or Facebook, as well as through apps on your mobile phone or tablet. 

This guide is designed for you to become familiar with selected sources to use for staying up-to-date on developments in your area.  It focuses on law-related sources. You may also want to check our our Mobile Apps for Legal Research guide for apps related to law and our research guides generally to find additional current awareness sources related to your particular area.  

It is useful to look at national libraries and libraries in general for the country in which you are interested to see if they have new books lists.  Vendors for books in the country might also provide alerting services.

This page includes resources for getting tables of contents of particular journals and search alerts for journal articles generally.

Some journal websites provide their own services for content alert

Sometimes, the links in the alerts will not work properly. There are two possible workarounds. You can try using the Harvard LibX toolbar. Once installed in your browser, right-click (PC) or CTRL-click (Mac) the link and select "Re-load via Harvard Access." Alternatively, you can try inserting .ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu just after the .com and before the first slash in the URL. For example,

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1468-0289.2007.00422.x

becomes

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1468-0289.2007.00388.x

Many journal publishers and vendor platforms provide alert services. Try the following strategy to discover whether an alert service is available for a journal of interest to you:

1. Look up the journal in Find E-Journals.
2. A list of databases that have full text of the journal will be displayed.
3. Select the database that has the most current issues and locate the journal.
4. Look for a link to set up an alert.

Even if we do not subscribe to a journal online, many publishers offer free table of contents alerts on their websites.

Many of our online databases have alerting features so you can save a search and be alerted for future results.  The graphic above is an example from our EBSCO databases.

SSRN

The library subscribes to its email alert services in several subject areas or "networks," including law, management, accounting, economics, politics and more.    You must register and be affiliated with Harvard's account to receive these services.

Register for an SSRN account (upper left of screen).  Once you log in, click on subscriptions on left-hand side to affiliate yourself with Harvard. (See below.)

You can also sign up RSS feeds of particular authors from their author pages.

Numerous options are available for keeping up with newly published literature, including those listed below. Please contact the Reference Desk, 617-495-4516, for information about customizing journal alerts to meet your current awareness needs.

HeinOnline-MyHein

Through HeinOnline's MyHein, you may set alerts for tables of contents from journals or search queries.  See MyHein's User Guide for more information.

LegalTrac Search Alert and RSS Feed

LegalTrac Search Alerts allow you to create email alerts and RSS feeds of searches run in LegalTrac. Email alerts can be sent daily, weekly or monthly. After running a search in LegalTrac, create an alert using the Search Alert/RSS Feed icon.

Numerous options are available for keeping up with newly published literature, including those listed below. Please contact the Reference Desk, 617-495-4516, for information about customizing journal alerts to meet your current awareness needs.

You can set up a search to be run periodically on Lexis and have results delivered to you. Additionally, with Shepard's Alert changes to Shepard's reports for your authority can be sent to you automatically.  See instructions for setting up alerts on Lexis Advance.

You can set up a search to be run regularly and have the delivered to you. With KeyCite Alert, you can be informed when new materials are added to the KeyCite report for the authority you are citating.  Westlaw offers documentation about its alerting services on Westlaw. See also Creating a Newsletter.

Bloomberg allows you see set up search alerts from its databases, including BNA newsletters and its dockets. 

BNA publications give you access to cases, laws and regulations as well as news and analysis on a large number of topics. Highlights and headlines can be delivered to your email inbox daily.

You can do e-mail keyword alerts from many of the BNA publications through Bloomberg.

CCH Intelliconnect offers Tracker News and Report Letters once you have signed into your personal account.   See the screen shots below and   Current Awareness Sources for Law (Northern Illinois Universities) for useful instructions in how to set up alerts.