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.
Founded in 1998 by Denis Dutton, and purchased in 2002 by The Chronicle of Higher Education, Arts & Letters Daily is a free service. It is a vehicle for intellectual exchange, and brings together a substantial archive of links to articles, book reviews and essays on the world of art and ideas. Dutton described it as 'a reading list - with attitude'. The site can be followed on Twitter, Facebook or a weekly email.
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 May Workers' Day
2 May World Economic Forum on Africa
3 May United Nations World Press Freedom Day
14 May Mother's Day
15 May United Nations International Day of Families
17 May United Nations World Telecommunication and Information Society Day
18 May International Museum Day (International Council of Museums)
22 May United Nations International Day for Biological Diversity
25 May Africa Day (African Union)
29 May United Nations International Day of UN Peacekeepers
31 May United Nations World No Tobacco Day
May 2017 is Energy Month and Africa Month.
World's last male northern white rhino gets help from Tinder
Facebook and Twitter could pay the price for hate speech
Why Manchester bomber targeted girls
Research at risk? Notable Government Documents 2016. See Library Journal, 5 May 2017 (United States)
High Court legalises marijuana for private use in South Africa and Understanding the court ruling to legalise smoking weed at home in South Africa
Top stories
South Africa
Africa
World
Should you wish to read Current Awareness guides of previous years, visit the Archive.
If you are looking for 2017's forthcoming conferences, the following websites are helpful:
This month's article of choice:
The following article is one of the most cited articles in Social Work.
HODGE, David R. 'Spiritual assessment: A review of major qualitative methods and a new framework for assessing spirituality.' Social Work, July 2001, vol. 46, no. 3, pp 203-214.
"Abstract: This article introduces a new qualitative spiritual assessment instrument. It reviews existing qualitative assessment tools and presents a new multidimensional spiritual assessment framework. The instrument consists of two components: a spiritual history in which consumers relate their spiritual life story in a manner analogous to a family history and an interpretive framework to assist practitioners in eliciting and synthesizing the full potentiality of strengths extant in clients' spiritual fives. Common spiritual strengths the framework is designed to evoke are discussed, and a number of interventions based on prevalent spiritual strengths are suggested." [From the MasterFILE Premier database].
To retrieve the article, click on the embedded link above. Students need to enter their student number and myUnisa password and click on LOGIN, and staff members need to enter their Unisa Network username and password and click on LOGIN.