The NISO metasearch initiative
Mark H Needleman, Jenny Walker · Proceedings of the American Society for Information Science and Technology · 2004
Metasearch, parallel search, federated search, broadcast search, cross-database search, and search portal are a familiar part of the information community's vocabulary. They speak to the need for search and retrieval to span multiple databases, sources, platforms, protocols, and vendors at one time. One-search access to multiple resources will allow libraries to offer portal environments so library users can enjoy the same easy searching found in web-based services like Google. Unlike Google, however, a library's metasearch services must offer access to many database targets offering many types of content and tied to different access requirements. Metasearch services in place today rely on a variety of approaches to search and retrieval including open standards (such as NISO's Z39.50), proprietary API's, and screen scraping. The absence of widely supported standards, best practices, and tools makes the metasearch environment less efficient for the system provider, the content provider, the library, and ultimately the end-user. Over the last several years Metasearch systems have emerged as a new and important activity in libraries and information retrieval. Metasearch (also sometimes referred to as federated search) systems are systems that allow users to search multiple and varied systems and databases that employ a wide range of search and access methods simultaneously. The Metasearch system performs all of the underlying mappings and translations necessary, making the process invisible to the end user. With the emergence of Metasearch as a new and important activity, an awareness has developed that the Metasearch systems and the back end databases they search need to be able to interact with each other in a more efficient manner than is currently being done given the ad hoc ways these systems often now interact. Access Management Collection Description Search and Retrieval Members of the NISO Metasearch Initiative will describe the background for the initiative, the events that led up to its being formed and the work going on in each of these three areas.