Page 260 - DLIS007_LIBRARY AUTOMATION

Unit 14: Current Awareness Services (CAS)

Attending meetings, symposia, conferences, etc. and through exchange of information Notes
during personal discussions.

Laboratory notes, technical records.
Information received through newspaper, e-mail, bulletin board, internet, etc.
Alerting services received from professional agencies.
Besides, the above, there are many other sources and channels from where current information
is received by the information seekers regularly. Every professional, be they information
scientists, lawyers, doctors, engineers, technologists, managers, academicians, whether in
marketing, business, teaching or research work, need to be aware of changes in the environment.
A variety of CAS can be found on the WWW, including the following: tables of contents services,
book-alerting services, search-engine alerts, E-zines or electronic newsletters, filtered news,
push services, agents (monitoring a user’s activities on the Web), newspapers and commercial
SDI services (which save searches to run them continually against incoming documents in a
database). Customisable portals can also be categorized as CAS. E-mail-alerting services seem
to be the most popular form of CAS in the WWW environment.

14.1.1 Current Awareness Directories

Current awareness directories, such as Free Legal Current Awareness Sources and Legal Alerts
and Current Awareness Services, provide annotated lists of services available to the user.
Legal500.com can also be classified as a current awareness directory. Its focus is on commercial
law developments. It contains information on new legislation, on new developments and on
cases in specialist practice areas and is written by the leading lawyers in each jurisdiction
(covering over 70 countries). Further features include allowing one to search according to country
and to register for monthly updates via e-mail. It also contains a list of recommended law firms
and lawyers worldwide, as well as news from law firms (i.e. the latest news direct from law
firms).

LawZone is a unique collection of news, features and articles on the latest legal developments.
It prides itself on being a gateway to legal information (cases and legislation) on the Internet. It
makes use of JustCite, a legal reference tool that indexes content from both free and subscription-
protected web services. LawZone Newswires provides subscribers with a weekly, generalist
newswire, or with a selection from a range of specialist newswires, thus allowing them to
receive updates on the latest relevant news, features and articles relating to areas of practice.

14.1.2 Characteristics of CAS

Current awareness service has certain characteristics. It is not in response to any specific query.
This service is provided to update knowledge of researchers in their areas of work and also to
keep them abreast of developments in a broader field. It is a continuous service provided to the
information seekers irrespective of the stage and progress of their research.

Did u know? Some CAS only provides bibliographical references, while others provide
access to full-text documents or websites.

Library and information professionals providing current awareness service should keep the
following characteristics in their mind:

A current awareness service is an announcement mechanism.

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