Keeping Current ... the Table of Contents Way

Earlier today I created about twelve "table of contents" RSS feeds for different technical journals and magazines. Via RSS I will now receive notification of each new issue with links to abstracts describing each article. Some of the content to which I subscribed includes the IEEE Spectrum, PC World, Wireless Today, MIT Technology Review, KM World and LINUX Today. One of the services I used is a great (and did I mention free?) service from a United Kingdom based academic consortium. This new service is named ticTOCS, and contains a huge amount of academic and research journals. I have included two screenshots with this post to give one an idea of how ticTOCS works. Create a personal account; it allows you to save your searches (i.e. desired journals) and RSS feed data.

The other big source I used was an online service which I access through my work named EBSCO. This online magazine service allows me access to more commerical kinds of magazines (PC World, Wireless Today, Business Week, etc.) Even in you don't have a similar service where you work, check with your local public library. In the United States it is now rare for public libraries not to given online access to magazine and journals ... the price of admission is your free library card. The two big services are ProQuest and EBSCO. Given how fast technology changes, and how hard it is to keep current, you owe it to yourself to create similar alerts. Here are two links which will help you find your local public library .... anywhere in the world:

• via LibWeb
• via LibDex

Here are the two ticTOCS screenshots. Click upon either image to view full sized.
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Comments

[daniela barbosa]

Not sure if you saw this discussion on RSS in the Enterprise but thought you would be interested (and the many comments it generated!):
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/rip_enterprise_rss.php

[Roddy MacLeod]

Hi Rich,

Thank you for mentioning ticTOCs. I'm glad that you have found the service useful.

Roddy MacLeod
ticTOCs Management Support