Automated searching of Web of Science?

[Tim Stedman]

Hi,

My first posting ever; I hope it isn't too much of an asinine question!

We have recently been forced to cancel our subscription to Current 
Contents due to budget constraints. 

We are currently looking at alternative ways for providing our 
university community with tables of contents services. 

We have a subscription to Web of Science, but its functionality 
is not ideal for this purpose. 

Have any libraries pioneered the use of scripts to interrogate Web  
of Science semi-automatically, to enable automated searches and  
downloads against the weekly updates on the citation indexes, so  
as to get around the real hassle of having to select/deselect,  
downloading many hits 10 at a time, with several webpage calls for 
each 10?  

I would be most interested to hear comments regarding the 
possibility (or impossibility) of this, or any other ideas out there. 

Regards
Tim Stedman
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tim Stedman
Electronic Resources Librarian
Information Services
University of Canterbury Library
Private Bag 4800, Christchurch, New Zealand
Ph (64) 3 3667001 x8639 || Fx (64) 3 3642055
http://library.canterbury.ac.nz/infoserv/infoserv.shtml