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Reena Kapoor, Lovely Professional University Unit 14: Current Awareness Services (CAS)

Unit 14: Current Awareness Services (CAS) Notes

CONTENTS
Objectives
Introduction

14.1 Meaning of Current Awareness Services (CAS)
14.1.1 Current Awareness Directories
14.1.2 Characteristics of CAS

14.2 Advantages and Disadvantages of CAS
14.3 Selective Dissemination of Information (SDI) Service
14.3.1 Traditional Procedures of SDI Service
14.3.2 Conceptual Workflow of Traditional SDI Service
14.4 Online Procedures of SDI Service

14.5 Summary
14.6 Keywords
14.7 Review Questions

14.8 Further Readings

Objectives

After studying this unit, you will be able to:

Discuss the meaning of Current Awareness Services (CAS)
Explain the advantages and disadvantages of CAS

Describe the Selective Dissemination of Information (SDI) service
Discuss the online procedures of SDI service
Introduction

If you are part of a project, have an ongoing professional interest in a topic or have a responsibility
to keep your team up to date with the latest research you need to use Current Awareness
Services. Current Awareness Services send information about the latest publications to you via
e-mail or over the web. Services are provided by libraries and organisations that have a remit to
promote the use of good current information. These services do require an investment of time
to set up, register online or add to your RSS Reader. Once set up they run in the background
delivering information to you on a regular basis.

14.1 Meaning of Current Awareness Services (CAS)

Current awareness service has been defined by a number of library and information science
professionals but none seems to be universally accepted. Traditional definitions of CAS “it is a
system or publication for reviewing newly available documents, selecting items relevant to the

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