SpringerLink adds Semantic Search: Cross search eBooks, Journals and Reference.

Announced by Springer from their press release:

Upgraded Springer site connects eBooks and journals through semantic linking and provides digital content previews

Springer has relaunched its online platform SpringerLink ( www.SpringerLink.com ), which hosts nearly five million documents, including eBooks, journals and reference works. The redesigned site has a new and fresh concept that includes semantic linking and connects related content across eBooks and journals.

SpringerLink now also contains a PDF Preview feature that provides all readers with a free look inside eBook chapters to be certain that the content matches their information needs. Subscribers not only have access to an instant overview of the entire eBook, they can also scroll and browse within different chapters of the book and can immediately download the desired content.

The redesigned site includes newly-integrated software that presents links to related content within journal articles and eBook chapters. When users perform a search, the technology analyzes each search result and compares its digital fingerprint to all other documents. This determines which documents are most similar to that article or chapter, ensuring that readers discover content that best meets their research needs.

Additional updates to the new SpringerLink include access to nearly five million contributions organized in a revised subject hierarchy. Enhanced browsing features and improved search functionality with the ability to search by citation makes the new SpringerLink even more useful for researchers. Online journals, eBooks and eReference works have also been integrated onto a single, consistent user experience. Together with an enhanced user-friendly guided navigation, students and scientists can easily retrieve results for their work.

“Following an extensive usability study, we identified navigation, design, and the provision of appropriate context as our users’ most important needs, and this, of course, guided the development of the new SpringerLink platform,” said Brian Bishop, Vice President Platform Development at Springer. “Delivering content online provides so many opportunities to add value, and this latest release moves us forward from simple search and delivery to discovery and enhanced reading experience.”

Today SpringerLink (www.SpringerLink.com) provides electronic access to more than 2,250 scientific and specialist journals, nearly 40,000 eBooks, more than 1,100 book series and about 170 reference works. The publications cover topics from 12 subject collections such as mathematics, computer science, medicine, engineering, economics, law, humanities and social sciences. It also makes available 20,000 searchable online protocols in life sciences and biomedicine.