Current awareness is the term used to describe staying informed by keeping up to date with the latest publications, research and news in your field.
The perspective of current awareness is the present and the forthcoming, as opposed to the retrospective.
Current awareness ranges from looking for information on specific topics on a regular basis (and this usually involves the assistance of your Personal Librarian to help you set up a search profile matched to your research interests) to embracing a wider, more general, and cross-disciplinary view that brings an element of serendipity into your search for the latest information.
Informally, researchers remain alert in all contexts for useful information and insights that will inform their daily practice, their research, and spark off innovative and creative ideas for new avenues of research.
The website of the month is the UN's website on sustainable development. The site offers current information, is visually appealing and provides links to interconnected subjects from the brand new Online Technology Platform helpful to entrepreneurs, among others, to SDG Good Practices, news, and links to webinars. You will find the webinars under "Engage". On Wednesday 7 July 2021, for example, there is a webinar on higher education institutions and universities. If you miss a webinar, click on the link, click on FEATURED and scroll down to view the webinar on YouTube.
United Nations: Department of Economic and Social Affairs: Sustainable Development
On sustainable development:
On teaching Chemistry during the pandemic:
The year is marked with many special days, weeks, and months dedicated and devoted to raising awareness about important issues.
This monthly post, compiled by the Information Search Librarians Team, will note special dates and themes, and draw your attention to possibly interesting cross-disciplinary topical references intended to inform and to inspire ideas for research.
1 Jan - 31 Dec WHO 2021: International Year of Health and Care Workers. See "Health and care workers are owed a better future" (Editorial) The Lancet, 30 January 2021
2020-2030 UN Decade of Action for the Sustainable Development Goals.
Do you remember all 17 sustainable development goals? If not, watch this video ...
01 Jan New Year's Day
11 Jan Statement by President Cyril Ramaphosa on progress of national effort to contain COVID-19 pandemic
15 Jan African cities must prepare for climate migration
22 Jan UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons enters into force
22 Jan R2K statement on Information Regulator's engagement with WhatsApp on revised Privacy Policy
27 Jan UN International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust
27 Jan WHO World Leprosy Day
If you are looking for forthcoming conferences, the following websites are helpful:
You will be prompted to enter your Unisa student number and myUnisa password, or, your Unisa staff Network username and password to access the full text articles.
Lumley, Sarah and Armstrong, Patrick "Some of the Nineteenth Century Origins of the Sustainability Concept" Environment, Development and Sustainability, vol 6, 2004, pp 367-378.
Purvis, Ben, Mao, Yong and Robinson, Darren "Three Pillars of Sustainability: In Search of Conceptual Origins" Sustainability Science, vol 14, no 3, 2019, pp 681-695.
Seefried, Elke "Rethinking Progress. On the Origin of the Modern Sustainability Discourse, 1970-2000" Journal of Modern European History, vol 13, no 3 (Theme: Politics and Time from the 1960s to the 1980s), pp 377-400.