Conclusion
The state of metasearch is complex, but there is hope for better solutions in the future. Librarians will have to work on many fronts, including building “new systems, new metadata standards, new publishing models, and new user-interface designs†(2007, Lindahl, p. 217) to make metasearch better. Progress will likely be slow. But there is hope in new metasearch applications, which are faster and more accurate than ever before, and in Google Scholar, which shows what can be done with the right software and pre-indexed data. Future metasearch engines may be able to subtly direct users to the correct databases to search: “A better solution would be to have the system automatically select databases based on query terms” (2007, Lindahl, p. 221). One thing is clear- in the name of serving our customers, metasearch will continue to be an issue for many librarians.
kmd :: Nov.27.2007 :: Uncategorized ::