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.
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November's website of the month is:
TED started in 1984 as a conference revolving around technology, entertainment and design, and over the years it has evolved into a platform for exchanging a wide range of ideas from many disciplines. This site always has something thought-provoking and informative to offer.
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.
Selected Noteworthy Days in November 2015:
November is known as Movember when men grow moustaches to raise awareness of men's health issues.
It also sees the beginning of 16 Days of Activism: 25 Nov - 10 December 16 Days of Activism for Violence Against Women and Children 2015
1 Nov All Saints' Day
2 Nov All Souls' Day
5 Nov Guy Fawkes' Day
6 Nov SADC Malaria Day (Southern African Development Community)
14 Nov United Nations (UN) World Diabetes Day
16 Nov UN International Day for Tolerance
19 Nov UN World Toilet Day
19 Nov UN World Philosophy Day
20 Nov UN Universal Children's Day
21 Nov UN World Television Day
25 Nov UN International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women
26 Nov Thanksgiving (celebrated in the United States)
29 Nov UN International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People
'South African breakthrough for cancer diagnosis' (2015) SouthAfrica.info, 12 November
'Changes to car licence renewal' (2015) IOL (Independent Online Media), 2 November
Fleischer, Evan (2015) 'Americans can and should be learning African languages' Quartz, 10 November
Ensor, Linda (2015) 'Fees shortfall will be funded from budget, says Department' BusinessDayLive, 5 November
'Climate change: Will SA run out of water?' news24, 23 November
McCants, William (2015) 'The believer: How an introvert with a passion for religion and soccer became Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, leader of the Islamic State' Brookings Institution Essay, 1 September
Wood, Graeme (2015) 'What ISIS really wants' The Atlantic, March. See also the following book in the Unisa Library's collection: Richardson, Louise (2006) What terrorists want: Understanding the enemy, containing the threat. New York: Random House, shelved in the Postal Collection, so you will need to request the book online as this Collection is closed to browsing.
Enright, Michael (2015) 'No one puts their children in a boat unless ...' The Sunday Edition (CBCRadio), 13 September
'Migrant crisis: Migration to Europe explained in graphics' (2015) BBCNews, 9 November
Colijn, Ko ... [et al.] (2015) 'Paris: 11/13/15: Analysis and policy options' Clingendael and ICCT Policy Brief (Clingendael Netherlands Institute of International Relations and International Centre for Counter-Terrorism - The Hague), November
Zakaria, Fareed (2015) 'Trump and the Republican crack-up' Fareed Zakaria, 13 November
Live Science Staff (2015) 'Weekend reading: The best science stories of the week' LiveScience, 22 November
Knapton, Sarah (2015) 'Bear who inspired Winnie the Pooh had tooth decay because "Christopher Robin" fed it honey' The Telegraph, 20 November
'Gene therapy prevents muscular dystrophy in dogs' 2015 FutureTimeline.net, 26 October and Yue, Yongping 'Safe and bodywide muscle transduction in young adult Duchenne muscular dystrophy dogs with adeno-associated virus' Human Molecular Genetics, vol 24, no 20, pp 5880-5890 (click on the link to Full Final Text Oxford Journals - you will be prompted at some stage to enter your student number and myUnisa password or your Unisa staff Network login username and password)
'Malaria protein that kills cancers to begin human trials by 2019' (2015) FutureTimeline.net, 19 October 2015
'Ebola vaccine is 100% successful' (2015) FutureTimeline.net, 3 August
Cho, Adrian (2015) 'Mathematician claims breakthrough in complexity theory' Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science), 10 November
Should you wish to look back and find something you remember being posted here, visit the Archive to find what you are looking for. Note that Dec 2014/ Jan 2015 were archived together. The months from February 2015 onward will remain here until they are archived at the end of the year.
Do not hesitate to contact us at lib-search@unisa.ac.za if you cannot find what you are looking for.
If you are looking for 2015's forthcoming conferences, the following websites are helpful:
November's Golden Oldie is a classic written in 1977 and now in its 23rd edition. The Library has two copies of this book:
ECO, Umberto (2015) How to write a thesis, translated by Caterina Mongiat Farina and Geoff Farina; foreword by Francesco Erspamer. Cambridge, Massachussetts, USA: The MIT Press (Massachusets Institute of Technology).
Shelved in the Pretoria Open Collection at 378.242 ECOU on the 7th floor.