Tool tip: stay up to date with Sparrho

In this tip, we introduce Sparrho, a tool to find relevant publications in your field.

It is almost impossible to stay up to date with the literature. Scanning ‘online firsts’ of your favourite journals is already a full-time job, not to speak of scanning the mega journals, preprints and social media. And, browsing your favourite journals or following your peers on social media may not lead you to important new publications.

If this is the case, give Sparrho a try.

Sparrho is a free platform that can help you to stay up to date. It combines artificial intelligence and human expertise to provide you with the publications that matter to you.

You can do three things with Sparrho. First, you can save interesting papers on a public or private pinboard. Second, you can follow shared pinboards managed by others. However, many shared pinboards are no longer updated by the owners. And third, you can create a search on a topic and get alerts when new publications become available. Shared pinboards are also ideal to share new publications within a research group.

Sparrho searches 45,000+ journals. However, publications found with Sparrho might be behind a paywall. Read our FAQ on off-campus access to find out the ways to get access to subscribed Library resources when you're not on campus. You can use Unpaywall to get access or to find free versions on the web.

Want to try something different for your literature updates? Go to our website to find more tips on setting up literature alerts on different platforms.