Federated Search

There is an excellent primer on Federated Search by Jill Hurst-Wahl in FUMSI (Oct 22, 2008). This is an excerpt from her report, the Federated Search Report and Toolkit. The excerpt provides a clear description of what federated search is ( -- single interface that has the ability to simultaneously search multiple data sources) and the questions that should be asked when considering whether your company would benefit from adopting this kind of software. Among the features to look for is -- Faceted or topically clusteredsearch results.