Federated Search
10.17.06
presenter: Mark Phillips
(part of the 10.17.06 ETG Meeting)
basics of federated search
non-federated searching
- various library datastores
- target group = average undergraduate
- currently know how to use Google
- now they have four information locations to repeat searches
| federated search enables a single search to reach all information sources |
federated search vs. faceted search
- some products do both
- faceted search narrows results by grouping
audience for federated search
- average user
- not librarians
- "At its heart, metasearch is about providing easy access for the user to complex resources. It is not a tool that allows librarians—or other expert users— to search with greater precision. It's not for us, it's for the average user." Judy Luther, "Trumping Google," Library Journal
expectations
- far from perfect; there is no perfect solution
- not precise in what it retrieves
- get different search results through different protocols
- it's a start
- trying it can give us an idea of what's bad and what's good
approaches (ways to do federated search)
- primarily a way to find articles (in databases)
- whole system (includes as much of content as possible)
protocols
- Z39.50
- library catalog
- digital collections
- SRU/SRW
- digital collections
- OpenSearch
- library website
- electronic resources
- digital collections
- XML gateway
- HTTP (screen-scraping)
electronic resources
- hairy situation: link resolving
- searching 50 databases at a time takes awhile
- bad user experience
- maybe top 1 - 3 databases that are used 75% of the time
- ScienceDirect
- Academic Search Premiere
- JSTOR (?)
- balance:
- fast results
- simpler result set
- broad search (dataset)
- knowledge base
- connection information
- frequently updated
- expensive commerically (quick updates)
- link resolver
- do we have access to this article?
major players
- WebFeat
- lowest cost of entry
- can tailor it
- good knowledge base
- $9,000/year
- 50 targets; can add as needed (available to other libraries)
- MetaLib
- big daddy of them all
- expensive, but alot you can do with it
- includes SFX Link Resolver
- Georgia Tech's Umlaut
- Zportal
- Central Search
- Research Pro
- Ovid SearchSolver
- Muse Metasearch
- Single Search
- Content Integrator
- not marketed to libraries: corporate product
- Discovery: Finder
uses
- general undergradiate searching (quicksearch)
- subject-specific search portals
- University of Rochester
- class pages/subject guides contain a portal search
- work links into WebCT/Blackboard
- "find articles" link
issues
- multiple query structures
- "creator" vs. "author"
- multiple language sources
- metadata differences
- relevance ranking differences
- for one search result list
- lag in response
- 10 seconds feels long
- duplicate records from different databases
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