This post assumes that you already have a feed reader (also known as an aggregator) running. (See here for an introduction). I use Google Reader, but there are many options available. The point of this post is to outline how to create RSS feeds based on automated searches of literature indexes. The examples will be based on two scientific literature indexes, PubMed and Web of Science, but the approach should be applicable to any index regardless of discipline.
To review, an RSS reader will bring together new content as soon as it is available from any feeds to which you subscribe. This can include anything that is formatted as an RSS feed: blogs, news, even your favorite academic comics like PHD Comics (RSS) and xkcd (RSS). Most journals offer their table of contents alerts as RSS feeds as well, which will let you browse new content from many journals all in one place (and no more email alerts!). To subscribe to journal TOCs, just go to their website and click on the RSS or XML link.
Here’s a screenshot of my reader showing journal TOC updates:
This works well, but articles relating to my research interests are published in a lot of journals, some of which I don’t have cause to read regularly. For non-hackademics, the solution is usually to (try to remember to) run searches on journal indexes on a regular basis to see if anything new has been published in their area. Hackademics, by contrast, automate the process and let the new content come to them. How? By creating an RSS feed of their search and then subscribing to it.
Here is an example from my reader showing some automated searches:
Below are the instructions for creating your own automated searches in PubMed and Web of Science.
PubMed
Setting up automated searches is very easy to do in PubMed. Simply input your search terms to perform the search. For efficiency, use Boolean strings to combine all terms into one search. For example, here is a search string that I might use: “genome size” OR “C-value” OR “junk DNA” OR “transposable elements”. This provides the following results:
You will notice that at the top of the window there is an RSS link. Clicking this link opens a window where you can name and then create the RSS feed.
The next window is a small box with an XML link.
Clicking this allows you to subscribe to your search feed.
Done! Now any new results of this same search will be sent to your reader each week.
In case this isn’t clear yet, here are some video tutorials on how to create RSS feeds of PubMed searches:
Web of Science
Web of Science is an amazing resource for finding scientific literature. It is worthy of its own post, but for the time being I will assume that you are already familiar with the service.
To create an automated search feed in Web of Science, you need to have a subscription through your institution. You also need to sign up for a free personal account so that you can save searches. If you don’t have an account yet, click Register. Otherwise, go ahead and sign in.
Now, as in PubMed, just enter the search terms you want to include. For this example, we’ll search by an author (chosen at random, of course) instead of a set of topics.
Here are the results:
Next, click the Search History tab, which opens this screen:
Clicking on the Save History / Create Alert button gives you some options for the saved search:
Save this once you have chosen your settings, and you will see the familiar XML link to subscribe to the feed of this custom search.
You can create multiple searches and manage them through the “My saved searches” link on the top menu.
