Create Customized Email Alerts in MERLIN

Examples of search types:

• You have a favorite novelist and you want to be notified whenever MERLIN gets a book written by him or her.
• You're doing a long-term project on a topic and you want to be notified when MERLIN gets any new book on that topic.
• You want to be notified whenever a new DVD about Mexico comes in.

1. Enter the MERLIN Catalog and click on the "My Library Account" tab.
2. Log in according to the instructions given on the page.
3. Click the Search Catalog button.
4. Search the MERLIN Catalog in whatever way you normally would, to produce this particular class or type of book -
   an author search, an advanced keyword search, etc.
5. Note that search limits (such as to the MU campus or to a particular language) will not function for the alert.
6. If you want to search for videos, add the keyword "videorecording" to your search.
7. If you want to search for sound CD's, add the keyword "sound recording" to your search.
8. Look for the button on the right hand side of your results screen that says "Save Search?" Click on it.
9. Toward the top of your screen, next to the red "Log Out" button is the blue "Patron Record" button. Click on it.
10. There will now be an link to Preferred Searches (no blue button, just the underlined text). Click on it.
11. You will see your search. Check the check-box in the "Mark for Email" column next to the search.
12. Log out of your library account.
    

• You will now be notified when books fitting the criteria of your search arrive in the MERLIN system
• Searches are run every 2 weeks, so you'll never get notices MORE often than that.
• If no new books matching your criteria are added to MERLIN in any two-week period, you will not receive an alert that time.