Guideline

Federated search project

The National Library of Australia (NLA) is managing a federated search project which aims to enable web users to search the collections of Australian archives, galleries, libraries and museums through a single search.

In late 2004, the Heads Of Collecting Institutions (HOCI) endorsed a project to develop a “federated discovery service” for the national collecting institutions. The National Library was asked to manage the project.

The project has now widened its scope to include, potentially, all collecting institutions and metadata collections such as the Collections Australia Network (CAN), Libraries Australia and Picture Australia. The project has endorsed use of the Amazon OpenSearch protocol as a standard which can be implemented with minimal effort by the collecting institutions; and will support federated search at a basic keyword level.

CAN is participating in the project and has been an early implementor of the OpenSearch protocol. Its strategy is to host collection data for smaller institutions on its central database, while supporting distributed search access to larger institutions using the OpenSearch protocol. The test implementation at CAN is operating well and also includes querying the Powerhouse Museum's data. In November 2006, the National Library implemented support for the OpenSearch protocol in both Picture Australia and Libraries Australia.

As a result of these developments, it is now possible for anyone to search across the central CAN database, Picture Australia and Libraries Australia in a single search. Furthermore, as larger museums, archives and galleries implement the OpenSearch protocol in their collection management systems, it should progressively become possible for anyone to search across the entire community of Australian collecting institutions.

The OpenSearch protocol is relatively easy to implement and provides a "lowest common denominator" simple keyword search that can be applied to discovery services in any sector including government and universities, as well as subject-related search services in a broad range of areas including health, scientific and statistical information.

Libraries Australia, Picture Australia, the Collections Australia Network and the Powerhouse Museum collection are now searchable via the A9.com site. Please enter your search terms below to search A9.com. On the search results page you will need to configure your browser to add these targets. Follow these steps and save your preferences for future searches of Australian collecting institutions:

  1. Select the "more sources..." link in the left hand column next to the A9.com results list
  2. Find and add the Libraries Australia, Picture Australia, Collections Australia Network and Powerhouse Museum targets
  3. Select "done" to return to your search results
  4. Select "preferences" at the top right hand side of the screen and "save" to save your preferences

A9.com Web Search

These targets are also available via the Collections Australia Network collections search page at: http://www.collectionsaustralia.net/collections/ and selected OpenSearch targets will be made available soon for searching via Libraries Australia.

February 2007

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