Wicked Cool

July is Almost Here -- Beta-Test EBSCOhost 2.0

You may have heard that EBSCOhost is rolling out a new "2.0" interface in July.  Don't let it sneak up on you!  Go into EBSCOhost and click on the "New Features" link.  Then click the "Test Drive" link and fire away. 

Sure, there are a few caveats -- but this is your chance to test drive the new interface and get a feel for how it will work.  And if you try it out, let us know -- what are your initial impressions of the new search experience?

 

Look brillant with EBSCOhost feeds

Did you know EBSCOhost will notify you of the news you want, automatically? And they'll do it via email or RSS feed? How cool is that!*

To use this service, you need three things (click to jump to the how-to if you don't know what I'm talking about):

1. personal EBSCOhost account
2. EBSCOhost news alert
3. news reader (Bloglines will do)

Personal EBSCOhost account

Get into EBSCOhost (through the library, for example). Click Sign In to My EBSCOhost. Click I'm a New User. Fill in the blanks to create a new account, and contnue searching.

EBSCOhost news alert

EBSCOhost has pretty good instructions on doing this, but the first step eluded me until I realized you may have to do an Advanced Search to get the Search History/Alerts option.

News reader (Bloglines)

See Stef's excellent instructions for this bit. Enjoy!

*This is more than cool, in fact, as a way to keep on top of things you (or your patrons or board members or donors...) are interested in. Alice Yucht, a librarian in Highland Park, NJ, did an excellent program at Computers in Libraries 2006 called "Using RSS for Really Savvy "Resourcery," or How Bloglines Made Me Look Brilliant" (scroll down to Session S201). Her handout (pdf) is available on the CIL web site, and the audio recording is in the SCLS Professional Collection.

EBSCOhost: new features

If you've used EBSCOHost lately, you may have noticed a couple of nifty new features:

• Clustering:  When you get a list of results, you'll also get a list of subjects on the side to narrow your search results to a specific topic.
  
• Database selection:  When you search, you can choose to search a specific database right from a pull-down menu on the search screen.

Enjoy!