It used to be so “simple”…read the latest issue of three or four journals that came out monthly or attend an annual conference for the latest and greatest. Now with association newsletters, online journals and bulletins, print newsletters, society websites, podcasts…what are your tricks for keeping track of the literature in your field, especially if it’s multidisciplinary/interdisciplinary? I’m thinking of a spreadsheet of resources with how often them come out/are published to make sure I’m checking back? Tons of bookmarks get overwhelming.
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I’m in statistics. By the time a paper is published it’s nearly out of date.
Lucky for me we have ArXiv. And Google Scholar indexes new ArXiv papers that cite my work or are related to researchers I follow. So I get an email every few days with related papers.
But that being said it’s also a nightly habit of mine to check the new releases every day at 9pm. I’ve been doing this for nearly five years now.
I follow the publications of the top researchers in my subfield. Then I look into others they cite. Add to my top list, read theirs. So on and so forth.
I also scan a few journals regularly.
I receive emails from the most important journals in my field when new article(s) are published.
I just don’t. I look up new stuff when I need to. I get a decent dose of the latest and greatest by AE’ing and reviewing. It’s really all I can do.
Google scholar has a search alert feature. You can make pretty complex search keyword phrases. Mine are like:
“A” AND (“B” OR “C” OR “D”) AND (“E” OR “F” OR “G”)
This searches the whole internet, so you’ll get preprints, publications, books, everything. And you’ll get email notifications. This works well for me since I’m only interested in a few key areas
Podcasts. Listen while commuting, doing chores, or whenever. Then you can get rid of that folder (containing 300 pubs) on your desktop
labeled “to read” lol
I let my coauthor do it.
arxivist.com ranks arxiv preprints according to how much it thinks I will be interested and emails me the top five of the day.
I volunteer to review books at magazines, so I can do a good deed while seeing what other people are up to
All of those things were honestly tools for simplifying as much as they complicated the influx of material. They’re the same ideas presented to different degrees of formality and development. For example, podcasts and blog posts are quicker and less formal presentations of the ideas that are or will become articles that are or will become books. So following a podcast or two will keep you up to speed on the more cursory overviews of ongoing projects in your field(s). From that broader perspective, you can pick and choose which projects you want to learn in greater depth or vis versa.
I mean the real but unsatisfying answer is that real way to stay on top of things is to stay active in research and just read all you can all the time. I find conferences and podcasts are the best for maintaining that overview of trends.
Thank you all for your great responses, strategies, and advice. And also YES to librarians.
I wait for reviewers to tell me I missed some papers in my bibliography 🤪
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