I've noticed that reference and instructional librarians (at least in published literature) tend to use the term "federated search" more often than others. And by that they mean a broadcast search, not what Ray and many others mean by that term.
Library technology folk tend to use the other terms more often. --Dave ================== David Walker Library Web Services Manager California State University http://xerxes.calstate.edu ________________________________________ From: Code for Libraries [code4...@listserv.nd.edu] On Behalf Of Ray Denenberg, Library of Congress [r...@loc.gov] Sent: Tuesday, April 21, 2009 8:28 AM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Serials Solutions Summon From: "Thomas Dowling" <tdowl...@ohiolink.edu> > You can define differences between meta-, federated, and broadcast search, > but > every discussion on the topic will be punctuated by people asking, "Wait, > what's the difference again?" Leaving aside metasearch and broadcast search (terms invented more recently) it is a shame if "federated" has really lost its distinction from"distributed". Historically, a federated database is one that integrates multiple (autonomous) databases so it is in effect a virtual distributed database, though a single database. I don't think that's a hard concept and I don't think it is a trivial distinction. --Ray
