What are the weaknesses with federated search? It’s clunky. Slow. Limited (read: poor) relevance ranking. Federated search runs a real-time search of each of the databases and pulls in results as they are delivered to the search engine. So the speed at which results are returned doesn’t just depend on the speed of the local network bandwidth or internet connection, but also on the servers of both the federated search engine and the database it is requesting information from. Whether or not the originating database is applying a relevance ranking, the results provided to the user are more ranked by the speed at which they arrive. In short, federated search was once ground-breaking, but it had a short run. It’s out-of-date and not something most librarians today would select as their first choice.
Discovery, on the other hand, is based on the discovery tool (the search engine) containing a central index that “knows” the holdings of other databases. Just as a Google or Bing search does not search the internet, but only the index of the internet previously discovered by the search engine’s web crawlers (spiders, robots … take your pick), the library patron who searches a discovery tool is not searching all the databases, but the index of the search engine.
My (Jeannie’s) role includes being responsible for administering electronic resources other than the library catalog. I had attended several conferences and other presentations in which I heard librarians talking about how difficult implementation had been. I was concerned that I was going to miss something important. I do not have an effective tool for helping me get and stay on track since the vast majority of my job is reactionary by nature. That is, I cannot know in advance about (and be prepared for) database outages, failing links, faculty members wanting instructions for embedding videos in Blackboard, and so on. And I’d never been involved in implementing something this major. I asked Kelly to be something of an organizer or administrator for me to help me stay on track and not lose sight of ongoing pieces of the project. When she offered to be the communicator to the rest of the library, it took me a minute to realize the gift she was giving me. My personality and work style are such that I tend to just jump in and “do my job.” But implementing discovery has campus-wide implications. Our colleagues absolutely needed to be included. And trust me, I was not the person to do the communication.
Kelly’s involvement quite possibly saved my sanity. She certainly protected it. I did most of the technical work and almost none of the interpersonal communication. She handled it all with grace and aplomb. Even now, when I need to know “What did we decide about …?” I call on her to remind me. She has it all written down. But besides saving my sanity, she made the transition as transparent and collaborative as our colleagues could have desired. If I could wish one thing for you as you plan your implementation, it would be that you could have someone equally valuable at your side.
