ISCTRC adds polish to its spy glass.(EBSCO Information Services's international security & counter terrorism reference center)

Byline: Bobby Pickering

ISCTRC adds polish to its spy glass

' site review

Ebsco's International Security & Counter Terrorism Reference Center (ISCTRC) database has been given a new interface that greatly improves search abilities on the site.

ISCTRC is a full-text resource on security and counter-terrorism issues, bringing together a wide range of writings from magazines, newspapers, government reports, reference books and academic journals. These are combined with industry profiles and background summaries generated by Ebsco, and country profiles sourced from the Economist Intelligence Unit and Datamonitor. It's a formidable arsenal of content, updated weekly, and the new search interface makes it far easier to access its intelligence.

ISCTRC covers a wide range of major subjects, and the list of common topics on the homepage demonstrates the importance of the subject matter in a post-9/11 world where fundamentalist terrorists, cyberspace criminals and biological weapons are hot topics. The link on WMD gives all the latest intelligence on weapons of mass destruction -- something Tony Blair could have done with before helping invade Iraq.

Click on one of the common topics in the right-hand corner of the homepage and the site does a very simple, but clever thing -- the link is, in fact, a long search instruction statement that then displays in the Find box. For instance, the Religion topic ...