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Draws together the various options for current awareness services and assesses the future for such services. Attention is focused on the services offered by text retrieval packages in support of current awareness services. Both microcomputer and minicomputer/mainframe packages are considered. A review of other options for current awareness services discusses services from online hosts, database producers and national libraries. The electronic journal, electronic documents and document delivery services are identified as factors which might influence the nature of future current awareness services.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the frequency with which Internet-based social media (namely, wikis, blogs, forums and electronic mailing lists) are used by cataloguers to seek what Judith Hopkins (2002) defines as “specific (and immediate) current awareness” and “general current awareness”. The aim is to provide some insight into whether social media play a part in day-to-day practice and on-the-job learning of cataloguers.

A survey research was conducted. An online questionnaire was made available to self-selecting respondents via electronic mailing lists (AUTOCAT, CatSIG listserv, NZLibs listserv) and 176 responses were received.

The study found that general current awareness information was more frequently sought via Internet-based social media than specific (and immediate) current awareness. A statistically significant, weak positive correlation was found between the variables of “number of cataloguers working in an organization” and “frequency of accessing social media to seek out cataloguing-specific information”. A weak positive correlation was also found within the sample between the variables of “number of cataloguers working in an organization” and “frequency of accessing social media to seek general current awareness information”. Qualitative data were also gathered concerning the reasons respondents sought both specific and general current awareness information.

This research examines the assumption that cataloguers use social media tools to access what Hopkins has dubbed a “community of cataloguers” as one means of accessing informal continuing education.

Information overload, and the importance/or information users of staying abreast of relevant information, has led to the development of current awareness services. Not only have advances in information technology and telecommunications led to an increased volume of information but they have also made it easier for agencies to produce competing electronic current awareness services. This paper will briefly define an effective electronic current awareness service and highlight some available products and services. It is important that the best products be selected for use by individuals and information services. Evaluation criteria for current awareness products will be identified in the light of specific user needs and requirements for a successful electronic current awareness service.

The purpose of this paper is to review RefAware, a new current awareness product introduced to the University of Calgary in September 2008. Coinciding with the product's launch, a team of three librarians was established to develop expertise with RefAware and promote it within the library and across campus.

A brief overview of current awareness tools leads into a discussion of key features available in RefAware, supplemented by a detailed section guiding the user through the product. In addition to highlighting key promotional undertakings, comparisons are drawn between RefAware and Ingenta, one of the earliest current awareness services used by the University of Calgary Library.

Benefits of using this current awareness tool include access to current and reliable information, ability to search within multiple disciplines on a predetermined topic, the convenience of receiving alerts when new information becomes available, and direct export to RefWorks. Limitations include inability to combine search profiles into one search string, cumbersome source list creation tools, inconsistent functionality when exporting citations, and lack of clarity with regards to classification of source names.

While its capability to simultaneously search through many new electronic publications makes it a multi‐disciplinary electronic journal, RefAware should be viewed as a complement to other research tools, not as a replacement.

An objective review of this new current awareness product for librarians is provided.

Diffusion of innovations, defined as the adoption and implementation of new ideas, processes, products, or services in health care, is both particularly important and especially challenging. One known problem with adoption and implementation of new technologies is that, while organizations often make innovations immediately available, organizational actors are more wary about adopting new technologies because these may impact not only patients and practices but also reimbursement. As a result, innovations may remain underutilized, and organizations may miss opportunities to improve and advance. As innovation adoption is vital to achieving success and remaining competitive, it is important to measure and understand factors that impact innovation diffusion. Building on a survey of a national sample of 654 clinicians, our study measures the extent of diffusion of value-enhancing care delivery innovations (i.e., technologies that not only improve quality of care but has potential to reduce care cost by diminishing waste, Faems et al., 2010) for 13 clinical specialties and identifies healthcare-specific individual characteristics such as: professional purview, supervisory responsibility, financial incentive, and clinical tenure associated with innovation diffusion. We also examine the association of innovation diffusion with perceived value of one type of care delivery innovation – artificial intelligence (AI) – for assisting clinicians in their clinical work. Responses indicate that less than two-thirds of clinicians were knowledgeable about and aware of relevant value-enhancing care delivery innovations. Clinicians with broader professional purview, more supervisory responsibility, and stronger financial incentives had higher innovation diffusion scores, indicating greater knowledge and awareness of value-enhancing, care delivery innovations. Higher levels of knowledge of the innovations and awareness of their implementation were associated with higher perceptions of the value of AI-based technology. Our study contributes to our knowledge of diffusion of innovation in healthcare delivery and highlights potential mechanisms for speeding innovation diffusion.

The users of information services should be enabled to fully exploit current awareness services (CAS) on the Internet to their own benefit and also that of the larger organisation. Services available via the Internet have added to the importance of current awareness, the meaning of the concept of CAS and the purposes served by CAS. Empowerment requires commitment by both parties (information services and their users), a supportive environment, a clear idea of the outcomes to be achieved, and a new attitude to the training methods and opportunities to employ. The planning of CAS empowerment programmes within the familiar constraints on information services is considered. Aspects users should know about Internet CAS are identified, the role of the information specialist is considered and a few suggestions are made about the implementation of empowerment programmes. This article is based on a paper read at the Fifth Southern African Online Meeting, held on 9 June 1999, in Midrand, South Africa.

An industrial information unit must undertake certain activities to meet its customers' needs. The paper discusses these activities and places them in an order of priority. The resources available to a small, medium or large information unit are matched against the activities. The major activities, in order of priority, are considered to be (1) customer liaison, (2) special collections, (3) internal reports, (4) current awareness, (5) retrospective searching, (6) system development, (7) external literature data base compilation.

Summarizes the findings of a research project carried out at Aston University. The research investigated the issues surrounding the provision and use of CASIAS current awareness services with individual article supply services and the impact of these services on users, libraries and service providers, with particular attention being paid to the needs and attitudes of users. Places the current awareness needs of users in the context of their other literature‐based activities, and explores the benefits and limitations of the available current awareness, article supply and full CASIAS services, in relation to meeting users’ needs. Concludes with a summary of users’ suggestions about what might constitute the ideal CASIAS service. Introduces the interests of libraries and service providers.

Emergency management groups aiming to address community resilience work with complex systems which consist of multiple interacting dynamics. The purpose of this paper is to help ensure that information is displayed in a way which supports strategic performance, to address longer term challenges faced by these groups.

Ten professional emergency managers completed an online simulation of complex, community resilience related tasks faced in their normal working lives. They responded to either table-or diagram-based information about a relevant emergency management strategy. Responses were rated by academic and practitioner experts using 0-5 point Likert scales.

Analyses of the expert ratings found that certain components of macrocognitive performance reached large degrees of inter-rater reliability (ρ=0.76, p=0.003; ρ=0.58, p=0.03; ρ=0.53, p=0.05). Current situation awareness increased by an average of 29 per cent in the diagram condition. Prospective amendment quality also increased, by an average of 38 per cent. A small sample size meant that these increases are difficult to generalise.

Extensions of this pilot research could use larger samples and more generic simulation conditions, to increase confidence in the claim that certain displays help improve strategic emergency management planning.

It is recommended that further research continues to focus on current and prospective situational awareness, as measures of strategic emergency management performance which can be reliably expert rated.

This research provides novel methodological considerations for supporting a more strategic approach to emergency management, with a focus on longer term implications.

In response to budgetary concerns and feedback from users, the New York Law School's Mendik Library needed to streamline the way it reported current law journal table of contents (TOC) information to its users. As part of this streamlining process, the librarians discovered that most of the journals they provided in paper had web pages that provided full access to all articles in their current issues. The librarians responded to this opportunity by building web pages that provided links to these journals and noted when a new issue had just appeared. The purpose of this paper is to assess the status of current awareness information in the field of legal journals and uncover the options for best using them.

The library worked from a list of journals that they purchased through paper subscriptions. They determined the web page location of each and then checked whether the journal provided TOC data only, full text through internet protocol recognition or open full text for at least the current issue.

More than 60 percent of the law journals that Mendik purchased had online TOC available with full, free access to the content.

Librarians can begin to explore replacing TOC reporting with virtual journal shelves that contain full content to the articles.