EBSCO revised the EBSCOhost interface, adding many advanced features: clustering of search results, RSS feeds for alerts, expedited access to full text, grouping of databases by subject for federated (cross-file) searching, alternative citation format outputs, improved personal account maintenance, context-sensitive help, and a new Visual Search option. Some of the advanced features have already appeared in subject-focused subsets of EBSCO's content base. EBSCO has also introduced citation searching for clients licensing its business, communications and mass media, nursing and allied health (CINAHL), and sociology files.

The formal introduction of all the improvements will take place at this week's Public Library Association meeting in Boston. So I would say, look for it also to be officially introduced at MLA as well.

The new features include:

• Clustering. Users can select up to 10 options in a Result List on the left side of the screen to sort or cluster results. Options include subject, author, or journals and the display order. See a sample view (top right).
• RSS. Users can convert Alerts created within EBSCOhost into RSS feeds viewable within an RSS Aggregator or fed directly into intranets or onto Web sites, using EBSCOhost's persistent links. Libraries supply the authentication modes for Web access.
• SmartLinks. Users can reach full-text records quicker through new SmartLinks. The records appear as HTML or PDF documents in EBSCOhost, but the SmartLinks can also reach any licensed subscription full-text records linked through CrossRef identifiers.
• Grouping of Databases. The Find fields on the Basic and Advanced Search screens now show a drop-down list of databases (a feature once found on EBSCO's CD-ROM services and occasionally requested for the Web). Librarians administering EBSCOhost can also make their own subject groupings with their own assigned names. Administrators can even assign more than one name to a single database. Soon options will include the ability to sort the order in which databases are presented. The "Choose Databases" tab still allows users to name the file(s) they want. See a sample view.
• Citation Format Options. Searchers can have results automatically reformatted to specific popular citation styles: AMA, APA, Chicago/Turabian: Humanities, Chicago/Turabian: Author-Date, Modern Language Association, or Vancouver/ICMJE. The service works for printing, e-mailing, and saving cites.
• Personal Accounts. The "Personalization Activity Report" subtab under the Reports and Statistics main tab in EBSCOadmin lets administrators track My EBSCOhost activity, e.g., total numbers of search alerts, journal alerts, or personalized accounts institutionwide.
  Context-Sensitive Help. Question mark icons appear to supply users with relevant help in context. See a sample view.
• Tutorials. The online help manual carries links to popular tutorials on EBSCOhost, EBSCOadmin, and other interfaces. The 2- to 4-minute tutorials use Macromedia Flash with audio narration and matching screen test.
• Visual Search. Provides visual maps that use color, shape, and size to enhance the display of categories and subcategories of topics. The top 10 concepts are extracted from the top 250 relevance-ranked search results. Users can click through concentric circled topics and subtopics that carry concept labels. Larger circles indicate larger data content. Links to subtopics/subcircles extend all the way down to square displays tied to specific citations. Users can also filter results by keyword, publication date, and full text. Navigating the maps should take a little learning, but there is a lot of enthusiasm for this kind of visual search aid. See the sample view (bottom right).

An overall view of the new changes to EBSCO host can be seen from their tutorial.