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The idea of being able to search a wide range of library resources in one easy step-what's known as federated search, broadcast search, or metasearch-is more than a little compelling to me in my position as systems librarian at a university library. With products like Webfeat's Knowledge Prism, MuseGlobal's MuseSearch, and Ex Libris' Metalib, more than a dozen companies offer tools for searching journal databases, library catalogs, and other online resources in a single search.
In January 2003, the U.S. National Information Standards Organization (NISO) established a committee to begin formulating standards for these metasearch tools. A number of interesting and important issues are coming out of discussions about metasearching. Technical questions about the effectiveness of metasearch software are being raised. Problems of sorting and deduplicating results from many sources are being discussed, as are usability, search effectiveness, and best research uses of metasearching.
Metasearching involves searching a wide variety of online resources, library catalogs, and journal articles as well as Web resources and locally held materials. However, in my experience in an academic library environment, where I work with large numbers of undergraduates, metasearching most immediately is about searching journal literature in multiple databases. The development of metasearch tools raises some basic questions about the online journal environment and ultimately about the electronic content environment as a whole.
ONE-STOP SHOPPING
One-stop shopping is an idea central to the aim and purpose of libraries. Libraries themselves were created as a one-stop shopping tool-a centralized place where disparate sources of knowledge are brought together to be easily retrieved. Online library catalogs are also metasearch tools. The Integrated Library System has allowed libraries to bring together formerly diverse collections to be searched together. Library consortiums and Z39.50 have likewise developed at least in part to allow metasearching of materials from many libraries. The current round of meta-search products is the continuation of an ongoing process.
The print indexing and abstracting tools on which today's online serials databases and full-text research tools are based were created as one-stop shopping solutions for journal materials, in particular, subject disciplines. Indexes such as Psychological Abstracts, Sociological Abstracts, or American History and Life were created to provide a kind of metasearch access to the core of scholarly literature in particular fields of...