Library and academic interest in "push" technology?

[Mark McFarland]

Group:

The significant performance issues notwithstanding ...
>
>  -- The content available on current "push" services and whether they
>     might be more useful in an academic setting with a different sort
>     of content.  (Is it possible to envision a "push" channel of
>     value to faculty or students in Computer Science?  Astronomy?
>     History?  English?)

I think there is probably a place somewhere in an academic setting for
the kind of service that a user could subscribe to that would send
automatic notice of information objects that are germaine to specific
research (very narrow, _Jrnl of the Left Nostril_ kinds of subjects)
that would not generate much traffic - but in which particular users
would have a strong interest.  I think scholars doing ongoing research would
like to be able to configure a search form with a certain profile and have
that "subject profile", if you will, be handed to a program that would
search the net periodically for material that conformed to the request.

Mark McFarland
UTLOL-www.lib.utexas.edu
UT Austin