Create Customized Email Alerts in MERLIN

• 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 select the My Library Account tab.
2. Log on with your pawprint.
3. Select the Search Catalog button.
4. Search the MERLIN Catalog 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.
   • Search for videos: add the keyword "videorecording" to your search.
   • Search for sound CD's: add the keyword "sound recording" to your search.
6. Look for the button on the right hand side of your results screen that says "Save Search?" Click on it.
7. Toward the top of your screen, next to the red "Log Out" button, select the blue "Patron Record" button.
8. Select the link to Preferred Searches (no blue button, just the underlined text).
9. You will see your search. Check the check-box in the "Mark for Email" column next to the search.
10. Log out of your library account.
11. CLOSE all browser windows to completely to close your account.

NOTE:

• You will now be notified when books fitting the criteria of your search are entered 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.

• You can sign up to get a weekly email of new books added to the Health Sciences Library
  http://library.muhealth.org/search/newacquisitions/newacquisitions.htm