Ahh, but when it works

One of the most popular tabs on the Ed.D. Research: Doctoral Program in Leadership Studies LibGuide is AU Dissertation and its corresponding drop down menu of dissertations, grouped by year, added to ProQuest Dissertation Abstracts and the OhioLINK ETD. When Sara (fellow Library Cloud contributor and former AU librarian) and I created the Ed.D. LibGuide we felt it was imperative to consistently update the information for current doctoral students and incoming program cohorts. How so? Use ProQuest alerts for new dissertations published by Ashland University; quick, simple, and efficient. Alerts are not frequently published, so I was pleasantly surprised this morning when my inbox announced:

Below are the latest results for your alert.
Click the links to view an article in ProQuest.
Databases selected: Dissertations & Theses: A&I
1 new articles found for: SCH(ashland university)

I followed the link directly to the database, located the dissertation information, logged into LibGuides, and created and updated a new 2010 Dissertation ProQuest page. Even better, I finished in less than twenty minutes. I moved to the OhioLINK ETD and updated newly published dissertations from that resource as well (alas, they don't offer the alert or feed). As we move towards the end of this term, there will be program graduates and a new doctoral cohort to support. I'm pleased the dissertations are updated for both groups of students.

Even better the technology worked; I am still not convinced Bloglines caught all of my feeds during their maintenance yesterday (hah!).