State of the Art
Jeff Wisnewski & Frank Cervone
Quick overview
What is federated searching
What does context-sensitive linking have to do with it
How does federated searching work?
What problems could a federated search engine solve?
o provide a single interface to information resources
o provide a unified query interface supporting simultaneous searching of multiple resources
o Consolidate search results
§ Without eliminating the potential
What is federated searching?
o Interface between user and multiple databases
o Usually isn’t clear what database they get the info from
Standard features
o Support for multiple protocols
o Simple and advanced search
§ Search by specific field
o Post processing of results
§ Combined result sets with deduplication
o Statistics
Advanced features
o Integration with other software
§ Courseware
§ Bibliographic management
o Advanced result display
§ Clustering
§ Visualization
o Context sensitive linking
What is context sensitive linking?
o Go from a database to full text results in other source?
How is it done? Open URL
o Standard for persistently identifying content
o Provides a mechanism for encoding to link to and from
So
o Database provides Open URL which goes to our OpenURL resolver
o OpenURL resolver parses request for article and then brings up a target list of where we have access to the article
o Relating sources to targets and services
§ EBSCO ASP (get Full Txt, get TOC
§ JSTOR (get full txt)
§ Cosnortial catalog (get holding
§ Periodical Abstracts (get abstracts)
So who’s on top?
o From LJ Automated System Marketplace 2006
o Top vendors Webfeat, ExLibris
NKOTB (not the boy band)
o Enhancements to “traditional” federated search services
o Built-in content platform
§ CSA Illumina
o Replacement of products
§ Discovery… (Endeavor) {removed ENCompass, LinkFinder Plus}
· Now based on TDNet technology
· Discovery: Finder
o Replaces ENCompass for resource access
o Hosted service
o Pricing based on number of searchable databases
o Generates topic maps and clusters dynamically
o Customizable via css
o Personalization (extra cost option)
o Relies on Discover: Resolver for OpenURL resolution
§ Replaces LinkFinder
o Visualization of results
§ Aquabrowser !!! Used to focus solely on the catalog now getting into federated searching
§ Grokker in Ebsco for visualization of results
§ Vivisimo now provides federated search.
§ ExLibris will be incorporating Vivisimo into MetaLib
§ Ovid
· Based on Muse technology
· Hosted
· Results post-processing
· Customizable, branded
§ Webfeat Prism
· Knows of no other single way to get patrons to really use the databases and increase their full-text retrievals. (anecdotally, 100-200% increase in usage stats)
o Express services
§ Webfeat
· Hosted
· 7850 for an annual subscription
· Several interface choices
o Brandable
· OpenURL compliant
· ProCite/EndNote compatible
· Ebsco A-Z Integration
Fretwell-Downing – OCLC PICA
o FDI Portal
§ www.fdgroup.com/fdi/marketing/zportal_choice.html
o OL2
§ www.fdgroup.com/fdi/pdf/OL2overview.html
Who else is in the game?
o LOTS of folks
§ OpenSiteSearch (open source product!!) z39.50 solution
Trends
o Vendors migrating slowly, to XML gateways
o Integration with bibliographic management software
o More integration of visualization and clustering tools
o Federated search for the masses? (WebFeat Express)
Google Scholar/Microsoft Academic Live
