Good news for library users. Historical Abstracts and America: History and Life, two extremely useful but aged and clunky search engines for historians, have finally been given a facelift by their makers. The new interface is prettier and more efficient, though Historical Abstracts still insists, uniquely among historical databases in the civilized world, that author searches be conducted on a first-name first basis, "John Smith", rather than the otherwise universal "Smith, John". Still, better is better.