Federated Search

Speaking Notes from a Tech Talks Presentation by Mark Phillips, August 23, 2006

• Introduction
• Examples
• Other Stuff
• Links

Introduction 

Say you have a bunch of unconnected databases -- a phone directory, a products catalog, a press release archive -- and each of these have their own search engine.

A search feature on a large site or portal that will present just one search interface to the user and act as an intermediary to all the search features on all the other information stores (be they Databases, Stored Documents, Web Pages, et. al.)  A Federated Search feature is composed of the entire system used to:

1. deploy searches across these disparate information stores

2. collect and collate the responses from these disparate systems

3. present the results in a single list back to the user

http://www.iawiki.net/FederatedSearch

• Webfeat - WebFeat
• Metalib - Ex Libris Inc.
• Zportal - Fretwell-Downing Informatics
• Central Search - Serial Solutions
• Research Pro - Innovative Interfaces Inc.
• Ovid SearchSolver^TM - Ovid
• Muse Metasearch - Muse Global
• Single Search - Sirsi Corporation
• Content Integrator - Vivisimo
  
  

Examples

• Keystone Retriever - Index Data
• THDI test portal - Index Data
• LibraryFind - Oregon State University
• Bielefeld University Library Digibib
• UIUC Library Digital Collections
• A9 - Amazon.com
  
  

Other Stuff

• OAIster
• OAIS Michigan State University 
• Summa
• Bielefeld Academic Search Engine
• Grokker
  
  

Links

• http://www.loc.gov/catdir/lcpaig/portalproducts.html - List of Federated Search Products
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federated_search - Wikipedia Article on Federated Search
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metasearch_engine - Wikipedia Article on Metasearch
• http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~h3004fox/f97/class/fedsearch.htm - Federated Search Issues
• http://www.infotoday.com/IT/oct03/hane1.shtml - The Truth About Federated Searching

About the Author:  Librarian Mark Phillips is head of the UNT Libraries' Digital Projects Unit.