Earlier this week I wrote about an expansion to our archive of The Economist. I've since had a flood of questions (okay, two) about the more recent Economist issues — specifically about how to get alerted each time a new issue is available.

I'm avoiding other work right now, so I thought I'd have some fun and share the good news with you all: email alerts about new issues of The Economist are both feasible and super easy to set up! 

Here's the shortest possible route: 

1. Start by accessing the current (1992-present) issues of The Economist via the SFU Library. Enter your SFU username and password if prompted to do so. 

2. Click on Create Alert in the top-right corner.

3. Fill out the short form that pops up.

That's it. Bada bing bada boom — you'll soon be receiving emails each time a new weekly issue of The Economist is added to the database. Those alerts will list each article title and provide links back to the database for the fulltext.

I'm still avoiding other work, so I made a fancy graphic (PDF) outlining the process. The PDF version ballooned to 6 steps because the 3-step version above included a shortcut link, but those extra steps are also fast & simple: you should be able to get an alert set up in less than a minute.

Interested in learning more about alerts? 

It's possible to create alerts to keep on top of new issues of key publications, specific search terms appearing in a range of publications, and even new articles that cite a specific article. The process varies depending on the publisher or database involved. See Search alerts, web feeds, and RSS for general instructions. If you can't figure it out quickly, just send me a short note!  I'd love to help, and I'm sure documenting a process for you will be more fun than whatever work I'm avoiding at the time.  

Good luck with your research!

— Mark
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Mark Bodnar
Economics & Business Librarian
mbodnar@sfu.ca