An alert profile allows you to create a profile that matches your preferences for materials you would like to use. These profiles are scanned as part of the library's overnight housekeeping and any new works that meet the profile's criteria are added to the "profile set" for the particular profile. If any new works are added to your profile set as part of the nightly scan, you will be sent an email containing brief bibliographic details for each work, as well as a hyperlink to the work. When you receive this email, you can click on the hyperlink to go directly to the work and place a reservation against it if you wish.
In order to use this email alert facility you must have an email address included in your registration details.
You can also use your alert profile online at any time to scan for new items matching your preferences.
Alert profiles consist of the following information:
Search Profile
This consists of a number of search fields which define your areas of interest for this profile. These search fields consist of information found in bibliographic records such as author, title subject, subject classiications and various control numbers. You can also include multiple selections from material types, collections and locations.
Alert Frequency
This determines how often the profile is to be scanned and updated as part of the overnight housekeeping function. You can choose from daily, weekly, monthly or quarterly.
Profile Active Flag
This flag indicates whether the alert profile is currently active or not. If your profile is active it will be included in the overnight scanning function (depending on the frequency above) and email alerts will be sent as new items are detected. If your profile is not active, it will be retained in the system but not used as part of the overnight processing. Newly created profiles are automatically set as active. You can change this flag by updating your profile after it has been created.
Expiry Date
This is an optional date after which your alert profile will expire and will no longer be used as part of the overnight processing. Your alert profile will still be retained in the system and you can change this date at any time.
Description
This is a short description used to identify each profile. You can setup any number of different alert profiles to scan for different topics and you can use this description to briefly describe each profile.