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CABI Launches Enhanced Database Platform

CABI (www.cabi.org), a not-for-profit science-based development and information organization, has launched a new version of its database platform CAB Direct (www.cabdirect2.org), incorporating bibliographic databases in the life sciences: CAB Abstracts and Global Health. The new CAB Direct is designed to offer a better experience for students and researchers as they search for important life sciences information. The content on CAB Direct has not changed, but the new design will improve its discoverability, saving researchers time and effort. The new platform has been designed and built by Semantico (www.semantico.com).

Enhancements include the following:

• An acceleration of the operating speed of the platform and of the return of search results
• MyCABDirect-a personalized area where users can set up email alerts and RSS feeds based on their search results, share information, and save important searches
• Faceted searching-a feature in which users can finely filter information to fit their research needs, based on CABI's indexing terms and metadata
• The capability to view full text at the search results level
• Improved user experience through a more intuitive interface
• Suggestions for spelling variations

The new and improved CAB Direct is fully Shibboleth compliant; it will also abstract snippet views at the search results level, save searches to social bookmarking sites, and provide COUNTER-compliant usage statistics.

Semantico not only contributed design and build to the project, but also user research and testing, and deployment of its new marketing tool, FragR, a fragment editor that allows easier communication via the platform.

CABI also announced that the number of full-text articles available on CAB Direct and all other platforms that host CABI's products has reached 50,000 as part of the total database of approximately 8.5 million bibliographic records.

Source: CABI