RaPIDS: Rapid Prototyping of Intuitive Discovery at Stanford

Federated Searching

Federated searching is a strategy for simultaneously searching a number of online resources and pooling the results into one interfiled result set. As part of the RaPIDS (Rapid Prototyping of Intuitive Discovery at Stanford) initiative, SULAIR is experimenting with federated searching as a means of giving scholars a broad view of disparate resources held across many different, isolated systems. For this effort, SULAIR is working with Deep Web Technologies. The company’s federated searching system, Explorit Research Accelerator, is currently powering a number of science, technology and government search portals, including National Digital Library for Agriculture (NDLA), Science.gov, Scitopia, and WorldWideScience.org. SULAIR has developed with Deep Web Technologies three demonstrations of federated searching within the Stanford environment:

1. All Library Catalogs at Stanford
   Combined search for these catalogs: Socrates, Jackson Business, Lane Medical, SLAC, and Health Library of the Stanford Hospital and Clinics.
2. “Top 10” Databases at Stanford
   Combined search that includes some popular databases from the 800+ databases available at Stanford: ABI/Inform (Business), Annual Reviews, Biosis, Dissertations & Theses (Abstracts & Indexes), Engineering Village, Expanded Academic ASAP, Lexis Nexis Academic (News), Periodicals Archive Online, PsycINFO, and Web of Science. (Access is limited to current Stanford students, faculty, and staff.)
3. Stanford Digitized Content
   Cross collection search of digital collections listed on http://collections.stanford.edu

Related documents:

• Promotional Flyer (pdf)
• Help for searching All Library Catalogs at Stanford (pdf)
• Help for searching “Top 10” Databases (pdf), Database Directory Plus Subject Tags (pdf)
• Help for searching Digital Collections at Stanford (pdf)

We welcome any feedback you have on this initiative.