Using MyMUSE Library in Project MUSE
Channel: University of Alabama Libraries
Date: 2019-09-16

This video explores how to use Project MUSE's free MyMUSE Library features to save searches, generate citation lists, and set up alerts for new content.

Basic Searching in Project MUSE: https://youtu.be/4sjn4drX6YA
Advanced Searching in Project MUSE: https://youtu.be/3K59amTtIHc
UA Libraries Database Portal: http://guides.lib.ua.edu/az.php

Transcript: 
Hi, my name is Sarah. I’m a librarian at the University of Alabama. In this video, I’ll be showing you how to use the features in the MyMUSE Library in Project MUSE. For videos on basic and advanced searching in Project MUSE, see the links in the video description.

Project MUSE is a database that covers the social sciences, humanities, and interdisciplinary fields like cultural studies and media studies. The MyMUSE Library is the database’s free service that allows you to save searches and items, generate a list of citations, and set up alerts for new content in your research area

To begin using the MyMUSE Library, set up an account in Project MUSE. 

From any page within Project MUSE, find the “log in” option in the upper right corner of the page. Fill out the information in the lower half of the page under “sign up” to create your account.

This account won’t be connected to your myBama credentials, so you’ll have to log in separately in order to use it.

Once you’re logged in, you have a few more options for saving items you find and navigating back to them.

In addition to downloading an item directly or emailing it to yourself from the item page, now you can save items to your MyMUSE Library by selecting “save.”

You can use this feature without an account, but your list of saved articles will disappear once you close out of your session.

Once you’ve saved the items you want, navigate back to your account page either by selecting “MyMuse Library” under one of the articles you saved, or clicking on the account link in the upper right hand corner of the page.

The list of items you selected is saved to your personal library, and will remain there until you delete them.

From here, you have several options for generating a citation list. Select “Cite Library Items” in the menu on the left. Click “select all” or select the items you want to cite.

You can choose to export to RefWorks or EndNote, save a text file, email the citations to yourself, or generate a list that you can print or copy and paste into your document.

Project MUSE supports MLA, APA, and Chicago format for citations.

The MyMUSE Library has a few other useful features. 

The search history remembers all the searches you’ve done while you’ve been logged in, and allows you to re-run those searches quickly by clicking on the automatically generated link.

“View History” keeps a list of all the articles you’ve clicked on, so if you want to revisit something that you didn’t save, you can find it more easily in your view history.

In both of these sections, you can select items to delete, or delete your entire history by selecting “Delete ALL” from the menu on the left.


Finally, in the MyMuse Library you can also track new content in your research area by setting up alerts.

Select “MyMUSE Alerts” in the left hand menu, and then select “edit alerts” underneath it. You can enable alerts for new titles, journal issues, content in a discipline, or from a publisher. 

Select “edit alerts” on the top right and then “enable new alert” under the type of alert you want to set up. Let’s set up a journal alert. You can do a keyword search to identify relevant journals, or set up an alert for a journal you’ve seen in your general searching.

Choose the frequency of your alerts and how you would like to have them delivered. If you choose to keep the alerts in MyMUSE, they will be under “MyMUSE Alerts” on your account page. Finish by selecting “add this alert.”

Your active alerts will be visible on the Alerts screen. If you want to update one, click the plus sign on the right, and make the changes you want.

That’s it for now. Thanks for watching, and check out our other videos on our YouTube page for more information about basic and advanced searching in Project MUSE.

If you have any questions, you can call us at 205-348-6047, text us at 205-377-0920, or visit ask.lib.ua.edu to ask a librarian.