Google Wave takes the functionality of email, instant messaging and apps, and rolls them all into a single open source tool. There is a full demo available with a few jaw dropping ah ha! moments.

create surveys and polls and analyse the results, all within email/IM process

ticTOCs is a new scholarly journal tables of contents (TOCs) service.

ticTOCs is free, easy to use and it provides access to the most recent tables of contents of over 11,000 scholarly journals from more than 400 publishers. It helps scholars, researchers, academics and anyone else keep up-to-date with what’s being published in the most recent issues of journals on almost any subject. ticTOCs has been developed as a Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) project. The full press release is available here.

The National Technical Information Service (NTIS) provides access to U.S. Government technical content from 1964. Access to the NTIS database is available from Engineering Village. NTIS has recently produced a free NTIS Technical Reports Newsletter. The Newsletter highlights recently indexed and abstracted titles in particular categories – this first issue is about Going Green. Future editions will feature various NTIS content categories as well as showcase the relevancy of past U.S. Government technical reports to the current issues of our times. To subscribe send an email with your name and email address to ntrnews@ntis.gov.

For those who prefer to have alerts of search results or Table of Contents for specific journals sent to you by email, many database providers feature such a service.

The basic steps are:-
- registering with the database as an user
- doing a search on your topic OR
- a journal title search for Table of Contents (ToC)
- save as an email alert
- stipulate the frequency (daily, weekly or monthly)
- and the format (HTML or Text)

Then simply await for the alerts to be delivered to your email account.

For example, Web of Knowledge steps are available at: http://www.library.uq.edu.au/bio/useits/wok/wok_alert.html 

Many databases, online journals and websites are now providing RSS feeds for journal, table of contents (TOC), news alerts and updated search topic results. RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is an XML-based syndication format for distributing content on the Web.

To save RSS feeds you will need a feed reader. Feed readers can be web, desktop or email based. Web feeders include Google Reader or Bloglines; a popular desktop reader is Feedreader but there are numerous others. Email based feeds allow aggregators to send RSS feeds directly to your email account. An example of email feed is FeedBlitz. Here’s a brief overview of how to use RSS feeds with some science and engineering databases:

• Web of Science - Save your search alert - once saved you will see an RSS feed – XML icon. Copy and paste the URL into your RSS reader. You will need to register with the Web of Knowledge to save alerts or set up tables of contents.
• Compendex and Scopus - Click on the RSS icon once your search completed.
• IEEE Xplore - RSS feeds are available for recently posted journal, transaction, and magazine issues to Tables of Contents Alerts. Browse journals and magazines, select the RSS icon and copy and paste the URL into your RSS reader.

Please contact the Library if you would like any information on setting up RSS feeds to receive alerts.