[Web4lib] Does anyone need a federated OPAC search?

[Tim Spalding]

I'm getting a lot of replies, but they're from big institutions with
big needs and, usually, existing systems. It's obvious where the
"money" is at, but it's also a solved problem. There are commercial
solutions and, as Jeremy Frumkin pointed out to me, there is a
high-quality open source solution for institutions with Z39.50
targets, LibraryFind from Oregon State (http://libraryfind.org).

I'm wondering, however, if there are small institutions out there that
would benefit from a simple federated search—ones that don't have a
solution, and, knowing that getting one could be expensive, either
directly or in staff time.

I'm thinking, for example, there must be unified school district
somewhere that would love to let student search the school's
Alexandria or Destiny OPAC together with the HiP or III systems from
the public libraries from the towns that make up the school district.
I'm guessing that school would never pay for a "Integrated Federated
Search Solution," or whatever they're called, but could benefit from
one.

Tim

On Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 11:25 AM, Tim Spalding <tim at librarything.com> wrote:
> Are there any libraries out there who could benefit from a search that
> combined two or more OPACs onto one page of results?