Current Awareness

Service :
A Contemporary AnilIssue in
Kumar Mishra
Digital Era LIO, NCHRC,
NIHFW, New Delhi
Email id: anilmlis@gmail.com
Blog: http://anilkmishra.blogspot.com
 INTRODUCTION

Current Awareness Services (CAS) is an

important service provided by libraries and
information centers

It fulfill current approach to information

Due to the advent of E-resources, library

centered service are shifting to publisher
centered service
 DEFINITIONS
Traditional definitions of CAS “it is a system
or publication for reviewing newly available
documents, selecting items relevant to the needs of an
individual or group, and recording them so that
notifications may be sent to those individuals or groups
to whose needs they are related”

Acc. to S.R. Ranganathan “Service listing the document

appearing during a period covered & without being
selected to suit the requirement of a reader or a specific
topic under investigation”
 HISTORY OF CAS

In 1958, H.P. Luhn was the first to

propose the use of computers for CAS.
1960-1980, Various CAS based on
Computers and the use of CAS in
specific business sectors were
reported.
Over the last 20 years various
electronic methods for CAS have been
reported, for example the use of
 CHARACTERISTICS OF CURRENT
AWARENESS SERVICES
Not in response to any specific query
Continuous need
Not always necessary to go to the original document
It is an announcement mechanism
Speed and timeliness is the essence of CAS
Wide sources of information covered
Recent development in a subject field are given
 WHY CURRENT AWARENESS?

Keep professionals better informed in their respective

fields of interest.
Supporting and sustaining research, study, teaching
and business.
Automating the process of searching publications and
retrieving relevant information, and thus saving users
time, input and money.
Providing information in a preferred format for reuse.
 SOURCES OF CURRENT
INFORMATION
Professional or general news items
Conference and events information
Journal articles and books
Specialist information
New Internet resources
Official publications
Subject-specific sources
EFFECTIVE CURRENT AWARENESS
SERVICES
A good Current Awareness service is
based on four main factors -:
Knowing what topics to cover
Knowing who wants what
Knowing the sources for obtaining the latest
information
Supplying the information regularly and
reliably
DELIVERY OF CAS
 right information
 right user
 right time
 right format
 right sources
 right cost to keep users up-to-date.
 AIMS OF CAS IN DIGITAL ERA

• Many of the services provide very useful information but the

information requires further filtering.
• The services are not tailor-made for specific target groups nor they
support their specific needs as compared with traditional services.
• In the Internet CAS, the interest profiles or search profiles are created.
• Information
requirements.
is filtered and organized according to the user’s

• As regards cost, some of the services are available for free, while others
are available commercially.
 BENEFITS OFFERED BY CAS IN
DIGITAL ERA
• keeping track of new developments in a
particular field(s) of interest
• keeping track of new web sites, discussion
groups (listservers, Usenet groups),
publications
• keeping track of trends in a particular field
of interest (for example by means of the
tables of contents of journals)
• keeping track of new research projects in
order to react in a timely manner
• keeping track of Internet-related
development
Types of Traditional Current
Awareness Services
v 1.Current Awareness list
v 2.SDI (Selective Dissemination of
Information)
v 3.Press Clipping Services
v 4.Research in Progress
 CURRENT AWARENESS
LIST
Current Awareness List are being published at
different level to different audiences.
These are being published by international
agencies, professional organisations and other
who are far away from the group of potential
users.
Eg. Current content
 SDI
q In 1958,Hans Peter Luhn gave the
concept of SDI
q SDI is a current awareness system which
alerts you to the latest publications in
your specified field's of interest.
q User registration- Creating a search
profile.
 Press Clipping Service

Newspapers are the best media to

reflect the image of any society.
A Newspapers clipping service of this
nature can be of considerable help to
the scientific community and this can
be called a new type of current
awareness service.
Eg: VIPRIS CLIPSET,TERI NEWSWIRE
Click to edit Master text styles
Second level
● Third level

● Fourth level

● Fifth level
 RESEARCH IN PROGRESS
Announcement of research in progress appears
chronologically
Find out new developments related to user’s working
field.
E.g.- TRB Research In Progress
 Web- based Alerting
services
• Many of the web alerting services build
on traditional services
• Electronic newsletters
• Discussion lists or electronic mailing lists
• Weblogs
• News and RSS feeds
• Mobile Alerting Services
 Electronic Newsletters
A e-newsletter is a regularly distributed publication
generally about one main topic that is of interest to
its subscribers via electronic medium
 Weblogs
It is by the users for the users
Some of these are available for
subscription and some are for free.
 Really Simple Syndication

Widely used by news content providers

to deliver news 'headlines' on the
Internet
Can syndicate content to third party
web sites
RSS feed use newsreaders or news
aggregator.
 Mobile Alerting Services

Mobile Alert Services provide a

simple and cost-effective method
of managing important e-mails.
Mobile Alert enables our e-mails
to be sent directly to our mobile
phone via a text message.
THANK YOU

anilkmishra