[Web4lib] Does anyone need a federated OPAC search?

[Ross Singer]

On Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 12:03 PM, Marcie Brandriff <Mpierson at cwmars.org> wrote:
> The thing that came to mind first was, just because you might be able to do a federated search of several systems at one doesn't mean you can place requests on items. If the library card barcodes are not in the system, you can't do anything except search.
>
But the opposite is also true, prevalent and completely underutilized.
 For example, when I worked at Georgia Tech, I had an idea I wanted to
implement (but couldn't get enough interest to actively move forward
on) to create somewhat ad-hoc union catalogs for:

* GaTech and the particular public libraries in the Atlanta metro area.
* GaTech and Emory (since they shared a couple of programs) -
particularly targeted towards biosciences
* ARCHE (http://www.atlantahighered.org/)
* Other engineering/sciences based universities/libraries (VaTech,
etc.) throughout the southeast/country -- primarily for interlibrary
loan

These actually would have been fairly simple to implement and
maintain, honestly, but needed somebody with better access (and
salesmanship) to the other libraries than me.  Without a working
prototype, it's hard to see the immediate value (although, honestly, I
can't see why everybody can't see the value in the academic/public
one).

-Ross.