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Online Tools To Help You Stay Updated
by Dennie Heye
As an information researcher, I need to stay up-to-date on the topics I'm researching. Since I'd like to focus my energy and attention on research rather than on current awareness, however, I use several handy online tools to keep me current. Most of these tools are generally available, so they can also help you keep up with the topics you're interested in.
Web Site Headlines Via E-mail
Many web sites offer an e-mail service, which delivers new items or headlines by e-mail. This is a quick way to stay up-to-date: you don't have to spend time surfing through several web sites to see what's new, but instead get the new items delivered directly to you. Two services I find useful are the e-mail alerts at CNN.com's European Edition, which deliver the latest headlines of Europe's top stories, and eMarketer, which brings me the latest e-business stats and articles.
E-mail Discussion Lists and Newsgroups
If you really need to keep current on a specific topic, consider joining an e-mail discussion list, e-mail newsletter, or newsgroup. This can be like having a group of experts at your fingertips, who both keep you up to date on what's new and are there to answer questions. One good starting point for locating mailing lists on your topic is Topica. To find useful newsgroups, start with the vast collection at Google Groups.
One great example of a mailing list for information professionals is Free Pint This high quality newsletter brings together about 44,000 information professionals around the globe together. Each issue contains articles on a specific topic, with links to the best web sites, written by an expert information professional. Another not-to-be-missed mailing list is SearchDay, a daily e-mail newsletter from SearchEngineWatch with the latest on web searching tools, techniques and tips.
- Quick tip: If you have a PDA, you can also send those e-mails to your PDA and use otherwise wasted time (traffic jams, waiting for a meeting) to catch up.
Customized Profiles and Search Alerts By E-mail
If you have a subscription to an online service like Dialog, Lexis-Nexis or Factiva, take advantage of its powerful profiling features, which can regularly e-mail information matching your profile. For example, I've set up profiles which track my company's competitors. The minute they announce a new service or issue a press release relating to one of the topics I'm interested in, I get an e-mail with a link to the full text article.
Other helpful e-mail tools are those, such as Mind-it, that track web site changes. Say that you have found a couple of great web sites with subjects you want to stay on top of, but you don't want to waste your time remembering to revisit, only to find nothing new. If a site has no e-mail option to deliver new items, you can direct Mind-it to track either one page or the whole site and e-mail you with any changes. I use this to track our competitors' web sites and to learn about their new services and products.
Related to this are search engine alert services, such as Northern Light Search Alerts. You specify a search string, and Northern Light sends you an e-mail when a new hit matching your search string has been found. This frees you from doing regular searches to find new and interesting web sites.
Breaking News
To stay on top of breaking news, I use two kinds of Internet services. One is the wonderful invention of the weblog. A weblog is a personal, non-commercial web site in a dated log format on a particular topic or interest, updated on a very frequent basis. Weblogs often point to items on other web sites and comment on that, which makes them great places to visit for staying up to date while just visiting a small number of weblogs.
On library topics, Librarian.net is the most well-known weblog that provides news and comments on library issues. I'd also recommend my favorite weblog: ResearchBuzz. Tara Calishain posts new and interesting web sites for researchers every day, adding her experiences and comments. For a directory of weblogs, sorted by topic, go to the Open Directory project.
Lastly, I've installed the Moreover newsticker on my desktop, which brings me real-time news on my particular interests. There are many predefined topics to chose from, or you can use a keyword search to create a personalized newsticker. When I see an interesting story, I immediately post a link on our intranet or send the link to someone who I know would be interested.
By using these tools, I'm able to support my colleagues with customized real-time news, which can make a big difference. For example, a year ago my company was in fierce competition with two other consulting firms for a big engagement. On the day that all the consulting firms were to present their proposals, I got an important search alert. This search alert told me that the client we were bidding for had just hired a new CFO, who used to be a colleague of our marketing manager. So, at the last minute, our marketing manager took over the presentation from the sales manager... and yes, we closed the deal.
Dennie Heye is a researcher with a focus on IT- related topics with a Big 5 firm in The Netherlands. In his spare time he collects penguin postcards and wonders about life, the universe and everything.