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Webspirs Current Awareness (SDI) Help for SilverPlatter Databases

This service allows searchers to directly create and manage saved searches that will generate weekly email updates of newly listed citations that match the saved searches.

What are typical searches?

Most people create searches that are either by keyword or by journal title (see below).

What are the steps to create an automatic email update?

• Start searching in a SilverPlatter database.
• Create your best search strategy, making sure it retrieves less than 1000 records. You need to have less than 1000 records in your search results to create your baseline search necessary for your updates.
  • If your search returns more than 1000 records refine your search by adding more terms or limit your searching by adding a Current Contents Update (UD) limit. To add an update limit to your search look at the first record on your previous search. In the record will be a UD field that stands for the update number of Current Contents in which the record was received - take that number (something like "200241") and subtract 1 from it and then add to your previous search "and (UD > 200240)" and then run the search. This should reduce the number of records that you retrieve to less than 1000.
• Click on the Search History tab.
• Click on the Create SDI icon next to the search statement that represents your best search strategy.

• Enter your Personal User Name (or create one if this is your first time). Note: the Personal User Name must consist of your full UW email address, e.g. husky@u.washington.edu.
• Follow the directions on the screen to select a name for your search (enter only numbers and letters in the search name - no spaces or other characters), fields to be included in the results, and expiration date. Make sure that your email address is included. Change display to short field labels. When completed click the Create SDI button on the upper right.
• If your SDI search was saved successfully an email message will be sent to you. If an email notification is not received your SDI search was unsuccessful. Please note that it may take a few minutes for your SDI search to show up in your account.

How do I get new citations for a specific journal?

• To make sure that you get only records from the journal you want you should include the ISSN in the search. To find the ISSN click on the Index tab in the upper right of the screen. In the field "Index to Search" select Source and then enter your journal title. When you see the title click on the link to bring up records from the journal. You will get all of the records for that journal with the most recent articles being first. The ISSN (or sometimes IS) will be in the record. The journal Science has an ISSN of 0036-8075.
• You also need to limit your search so that you don't get too many records initially. Using that same record list as above, find the UD (update) number of the most recent (first) citation. The UD number should be something like 200241. Since you want to get some records for your baseline search you need to subtract 1 from the UD. Your search would then look like:
  0036-8075 and (UD > 200240)
• Now click the search tab in the upper right hand corner and enter your search as indicated above. Then click the SDI tab on the upper right. When the next page comes up click the Create SDI button on the upper left. When the next page comes up find the search that you just did and click the Create SDI button next to that page. Then fill out information as described above.
• If your SDI search was saved successfully an email message will be sent to you.

Where can I get more help?

General help is available on every screen by clicking on Help or using the pull-down menu by the How do I...? box. The Database Guide provides help on the database you are using. Contact library staff if you need assistance.