In this time of serial cancellations getting a free, or what amounts to a free, subscription to an academic journal would be a veritable boon. Wish no mre! Many of our database vendors allow users to create virtual subscriptions. There are some limitations--there are always limitations--but it is still a cool service.
Each content provider will handle the journal alert (which is what these virtual subscriptions are often called) a little differently. Typically, you either create an account and then select the journal you are interested in OR you fill out a form directly associated with a particular journal.
Project MUSE, for example, is the content provider for REVIEWS IN AMERICAN HISTORY. MUSE has a tab called 
.
Clicking on that tab takes you to a page that will provide a link to MUSE's Journal Alerts application. Two or three clicks later, you are done.
If you look up a journal in the PHL and it is available in an EBSCO database, then you can use that database to establish a journal alert.
For example the PHL tells us that Social Forces is provided to us via EBSCO's ACADEMIC SEARCH PREMIER.
Clicking on the link to the EBSCO database will take you to the record for Social Forces (or whatever journal you are interested in). Once there, you need to examine the record and make sure that we get current issues. Many journals (this is the limitation I told you about)embargo current issues for a year. You can still create an alert. You simply won't get the full text, but you will get table of contents. You could then I.L.L. the articles you are interested in. SOCIAL FORCES , however, is not one of those.
On the upper right hand side of the EBSCO record, just above the ALL ISSUES list, you will see a link that says "Alert / Save / Share." Click on this link.
An application will pop up that will ask if you want to: bookmark the page, link to it, create am RSS feed or create an alert. SIDELIGHT: you can actually link articles from EBSCO into your FACEBOOK account using the Bookmark feature. This feature will NOT work if you are using a library computer (too much security) but may work in your office and will certainly work from your home computer. Conceivably if you created a FaceBook group for a class, you would be able to share articles with the class via FaceBook. That's a topic for another day. BACK TO CREATING A JOURNAL ALERT.
Click on "Create an Alert"
You will now be taken to the My EBSCO Host login page. As you probably don't have a My EBSCO Host account, you will want to click on the I'm A New User link. Fill out the form. It takes only a few moments.
Once you have created your account, you will be taken to a menu that will allow you to create your alert.
I usually choose to have my alerts run for a year--and I request that they be sent to me in HTML so that I can click on the links to the articles. That's it. If there is a journal you'd like to create an alert for, but aren't sure how to go about it, send me an e-mail, and I will do my best to steer you in the right direction.