Knovel K-News Archive

SPECIAL EDITION: Knovel Web Site Enhancements

New enhancements to Knovel's Web site design and user interface will be released on June 1st. These enhancements will make finding and analyzing information on Knovel faster and easier. In addition to a streamlined interface with new graphics, the main enhancement will be a change in search. Below is an overview of Knovel's new look and powerful new search features. The features that have been substantially updated or are new have been labeled with a NEW icon . This issue of K-News is somewhat longer than normal because of the important nature of the information. The regular format of K-News will return with the next issue on June 1st.

SPECIAL EDITION: Knovel Corporate Home Page

Knovel has a new Corporate Home Page, created to provide more extensive information about Knovel Corporation and its services. The Knovel site as it exists prior to June 1, 2005 will be renamed Knovel Library (more on that below). A new service called Knovel Plastics will be launched later this year. More services will be introduced in the next several years as Knovel continues its rapid expansion and mission to be the leader in delivering quick and complete data solutions to researchers by providing comprehensive electronic libraries with embedded software tools that easily integrate into the researcher's workflow.

1. Menu/Navigation
This area provides quick access to a variety of useful information about Knovel Corporation and its services, including:

• About Knovel - Overview of Knovel, management biographies, board of directors, privacy statement, Knovel logos, FAQs.

• Try Knovel - Request a trial, create a free account, use Knovel's free tools, the Knovel Sample Book, search examples.

• Knovel Customers - Knovel benefits for business, academe, government, and international organizations.

• Knovel Partners - List of Knovel's 40+ publishing partners that make the world's best references available via Knovel.

• Knovel News - Knovel's biweekly e-newsletter, press releases and mentions, reviews, upcoming events, and K-Bear!

• Product Information - Description of Knovel's current service offerings, including Knovel Library and Knovel Plastics.

2. Take the Tour
A quick visual look at the Knovel service. Screen shots that illustrate how to use Knovel's online research platform.

3. Knovel News
The latest news about Knovel and its services, taken from K-News, Knovel's biweekly e-newsletter.

4. How Knovel Can Help
This section describes how Knovel benefits users of our service, including Corporate Information Professionals, Academic Librarians, Scientists and Engineers, and Students and Researchers.

5. Quick Navigation Links
Links that quickly help you with information about ordering Knovel's services, using the freely available features of Knovel, and who to contact and how.

SPECIAL EDITION: Knovel Library Home Page

Knovel's existing service has been renamed “Knovel Library”
to reflect its character as a related collection of full-text science and technical references and databases, available online in a single interface. The re-designed Knovel Library Home Page has been streamlined to help you find answers faster. Powered by 700+ high-quality references and embedded with analytical tools, Knovel Library is a powerful and intuitive research platform.

1. Single Search Box
The biggest change to Knovel Library is a single search box which appears prominently at the top of almost every page in the site. Knovel's single search box has been updated to include many new features (details below).

2. Quick Filters
Knovel has introduced a tabbed motif on the home page and on search results pages allowing users to switch between viewing information about all of the available titles in the Knovel Library, or just those that are part of your subscription. Users can quickly change from one view to the other with a single click. Just underneath the tab are filtering links that empower users to view all titles, or selected titles. Among the new filters are All Titles, New Titles (added to the site in the past 90 days), Updated Titles (titles updated in the last 90 days), Coming Soon, and Titles with Productivity Tools. Knovel's filters help users fine-tune searching and browsing and pinpoint with great accuracy just the bits of information needed.

3. Subject Area Links
Although not new, Knovel has kept a very popular feature from the previous version of the interface–links to Subject Areas. Users can quickly navigate to the appropriate collection of titles by clicking these links on the Knovel Library Home Page.

4. Quick Navigation Links
As with the new Corporate Home Page, Knovel has grouped together quick navigation links in the upper right corner of the screen. Links along the top lead to general information about the Knovel Library service. The second row of links help users with searching and browsing in Knovel Library.

5. Welcome Message
If Knovel recognizes a user as logged in, a customized message will be appear in this space. Users may also use the link found here to set either the Knovel Corporate Home Page or Knovel Library Home Page as the default screen to appear when they return to www.knovel.com.

Knovel Library lets you search with the power of a database, browse with the familiar feeling of a book, and once you've located information, analyze it with powerful tools. Read on to find out why Mick O'Leary in Information Today said, “Knovel is not just an e-book search system with some neat bells and whistles. Instead, it's something new: a hybrid technical library and data analysis lab with a superb collection of technical data and integrated analytical tools.”

SPECIAL EDITION: Search Like a Database

Every word, every chart and graph, and every picture of all 700+ sci-tech titles is fully indexed. Knovel users can search by keyword or fielded value. Knovel's new basic search features a single search box with increased flexibility, power, and speed. Using the new search, users can combine features like Booleans, nested queries, and wildcards to create extremely accurate search results.

1. Single Search Box
Capabilities of the new single search box include:

• Booleans - Unlimited use of the Booleans AND, OR, and NOT.

• Nested Queries - An unlimited number of nested queries by placing parentheses around query strings.

• Proximities - The NEAR proximity locates two or more words within 5 words of each other on a single page or record.
  The NEXT proximity locates two or more words directly next to each other on a page or in a record.

• Wildcards - Use an asterisk on the right side of a keyword to find variations for that word.

• Plurals - Keyword searches expressed in either singular or plural forms will return the same search results.

• Alternate Spellings - Keywords spelled in either American or British English variations will return the same results.

2. Search Limiters
An important new feature with search is the ability to limit a search to a given bibliographic field:

• Bibliographic Fields - Users can limit searches to four bibliographic fields: title, author, ISBN, or table of contents.

• Limits - Users may also limit searches to a particular Subject Area, a particular book, or to the titles in their subscription.

Knovel has retained Advanced Search in the newly re-designed Knovel Library, which offers users a powerful method of searching ranges of values and fielded values across 30 categories and 185 fields.

SPECIAL EDITION: Browse Like a Book

There's a reason books have been around for the past 4,000 years--they're user-friendly! Knovel understands that researchers do not always find what they are looking for with a keyword or even fielded search. Sometimes browsing, as in leafing through the pages of a book, helps the researcher narrow the search and frame the questions that need to be asked. There are often different paths to the same answers, and Knovel has made the browsing path easier than hard copy or other electronic services.

Knovel creates an interactive table of contents (TOC) for each and every reference, whether the original is a print book or a database. Browsing the interactive TOC is a useful way to scan the contents of a title to determine if there are chapters or sections of interest.

1. Title Description
The top of the TOC contains a brief description of the title, icons that indicate information about the title (whether or not it is new, updated, or contains productivity tools), and a link to the official bibliographic record. Along the very top of the TOC is a click path that allows users to jump from this title to other areas of the site.

2. Expand or Collapse Sections
Knovel makes TOCs better by initially hiding detailed entries under buttons that can be expanded or collapsed depending on user preference. This makes it easy to scan an entire TOC quickly, determine where more information would be of interest, and then expand that area to view the detailed listing.

3. Access Full Text
Users access full text of chapters or sections by clicking the Text link. Many titles on Knovel contain PDF versions of the original title, and by clicking this link a new window will launch opening the PDF file in the Adobe Reader. Sometimes the full text is in an alternative format, such as HTML. Knovel has developed the Knovel Reader, a Web browsing device that "chunks" HTML content into browseable pages, retaining the pagination of the original title. Whether PDF or HTML, users can "virtually flip pages" as if they were using a hard copy book.

4. Access Productivity Tools
Many titles on Knovel contain embedded productivity tools (see below) that help users analyze and manipulate information into a more usable form. Those tools, when embedded in a given title, can be accessed by clicking the link in the Data column.

SPECIAL EDITION: Find What You're Looking For

Searching and browsing are not enough! Finding answers to your questions is what counts. And getting those answers FAST. That's where Knovel's newly enhanced site shines. Not only has search been redesigned on Knovel, but search results as well. You'll notice a dramatic increase in speed for your searches, as well as a new search results page. And browsing becomes much more useful when filtering and sorting are used.

Knovel Library has a new search results page that appears after either a Basic (single search box) or Advanced Search. New search results shows a list of titles sorted by relevancy as the default. This simple list of titles makes it easier and faster to sort through a large number of possibilities quickly.

1. My Subscription
By default search results will display a list of all titles where hits were found, whether or not the title belongs to your subscription. Users may now click the tab called My Subscription to quickly limit the list to only those titles for which they have access.

2. Quick Filters
Users can filter to show titles that meet certain criteria. Click on the links just below the tabs to show titles that are New, Updated, or contain Productivity Tools. By mixing and matching sort and filter options, users quickly limit the titles to only those of interest.

3. Sort Options
Search results pages are displayed sorted by relevancy as the default. It is easy to resort the list by a different criteria, including by Subject Area, alphabetical by Title Name, or by Popularity (measured as how often a title is accessed by the entire Knovel user-base).

4. Titles List
The titles list on the initial search results page shows the full title name. Users may click the icon to the left to view a brief description of the title, including author, copyright date and more. Icons on the right of the title name indicate extra information about the title, such as whether or not it was recently Updated, if it is a New Title, or if it contains Productivity Tools embedded in it. Knovel's new titles list will get you on your way to answers fast!

5. Viewing Hits
Finally, a particular title will appear to be a good candidate to contain the answers you seek. Click the title name and the table of contents details for that particular title will be displayed. The information shown by default is for all of the TOC sections where there was a "hit" from your search, ranked by relevancy. You have further filtering options to show Hits in Context, Popular Hits, or you can display the entire table of contents.

6. Access Full Text
Once you have located the information you're looking for, click either a Text or Data link and jump directly to it.

7. Navigate to Other Titles
If the hits you're viewing for this title do not appear to answer the question, users can quickly navigate to the previous or next title in the search results titles list.

Browsing on Knovel has similarly powerful sort and filter options as does search results. Users can filter and sort to arrange and rearrange titles into groups that increase the chances of finding the right information. Subject area pages have an extra sorting option called Topic, which allows users to group titles by topic within the Subject Area.

SPECIAL EDITION: Use the Results

Knovel embeds a variety of useful productivity tools directly in the content, which make analyzing and manipulating the information you find easy. Knovel's productivity tools are what makes the Knovel online service valuable to users. Find the information, analyze it, export it, and use the information.

Knovel productivity tools include:

• Interactive Tables - Find and customize data as you would with a spreadsheet application.

• Equation Plotter - Plot points on a graph curve.

• Graph Digitizer - Display, capture, and save for export any points on a digitized curve.

• Chemical Structure Search - Draw a structure and search hundreds of thousands of chemicals and associated data.

• Spectra Viewer - Display NMR and MS spectra data along with the chemical structure of an element or compound.

• Phase Diagram Viewer - Determine phase composition in atomic or weight % on phase boundaries for binary systems.

• Excel Spreadsheets - Calculate chemical process parameters as a function of other process parameters.

• Periodic Table of the Elements - Interactive, with a wealth of data for all known elements.

• Unit Converter - Convert values from one unit of measurement to another–approximately 800 different units.

• Knovel Reader - Designed for convenient viewing of HTML text–paginates HTML text like the pages of a book.