Anything and everything I can. Other people want to do this too.
Contributor: Lee
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Feeding?3 comments to Feeding? |
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I’ve been researching (and blogging) which engineering databases give current awareness alerts by RSS, as we’re wanting to give a session on this to our postgrad students. The major databases do, but it’s a mixed bag as to what they offer or how easy it is to set up.
Compendex is the easiest to set up: run a search and you get an RSS icon which you click on and it’s right there in Google Reader, easy as that. Every other database I looked at (including ProQuest) returns a feed url which includes the proxy server you’re accessing the database through — which means Google Reader simply can’t access it. So you have to manually edit the feed url — not at all user friendly.
Not to mention that in a month and a half of having the ProQuest feed sitting in my reader, I only have the initial “In Process” message and, later the same day, “Follow the link to view results for your search in ProQuest.” (I’m having a similar issue with Ovid feeds.) Maybe I need to do a broader search to get actual results coming through regularly, I don’t know. More investigation required.
Good stuff -thanks for the additional insights!
Not to slander any databases that don’t deserve it: a broader search has proven that ProQuest feeds (once edited to account for proxy issues) do work.