And the winner, by a landslide, is ProQuest.
This rocks. I mean, this ROCKS! I love Love LOVE that we can create search alerts with databases. Smart SMART move on the companies’ parts, and I think my tech-savvy patrons will be thrilled to learn about this.
But they aren’t there yet..there are some technical difficulties (compatibility issues?) to work out.
- Creating an RSS feed through the ELM Gale resources was challenging (would NOT go into my Google Reader, only my browser), and creating an RSS feed from the databases my library subscribes to didn’t work either because the reader doesn’t link via the library’s site, so you can’t access the articles.
- Creating a webpage within the EBSCOHost databases is a cool idea, especially for collaborating. HOWEVER, once again, if you do this through your library’s subscriptions, the web page you just saved to your hard drive does not link to the text via your library’s subscription information, so you still have to log in and find the articles using their reference information.
- ProQuest is the best. Their webpage feature lets me copy and paste in html format, and lets me access the content provided I’m logged via my library’s subscription portal already.
In conclusion, the best thing I gleaned from this Thing is to revisit the databases to check out their new features more regularly. I’m sure there is a tool that would email me to remind me to do this…
