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"Randomly selected undergraduates at Brigham Young University, Brigham Young University-Idaho, and Brigham Young University-Hawaii, all private universities sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, participated in a study that investigated four questions regarding federated searching: (1) Does it save time? (2) Do undergraduates prefer it? (3) Are undergraduates satisfied with the results they get from it? (4) Does it yield higher-quality results than nonfederated searching? Federated searching was, on average, 11 percent faster than nonfederated searching. Undergraduates rated their satisfaction with the citations gathered by federated searching 17 percent higher than their satisfaction using nonfederated search methods. A majority of undergraduates, 70 percent, preferred federated searching to the alternative. This study could not ultimately determine which of the two search methods yielded higher citation quality. The study does shed light on assumptions about federated searching and will interest librarians in different types of academic institutions, given the diversity of the three institutions studied."

"Three hosted federated search tools, Follett One Search, Gale PowerSearch Plus, and WebFeat Express, were configured and implemented in a school library. Databases from five vendors and the OPAC were systematically searched. Federated search results were compared with each other and to the results of the same searches in the database's native interface to disclose differences in handling query syntax, searching, retrieval, browsing results, etc. Each product was easily configured, but none were capable of searching every database desired. Simpler Boolean queries are the most successful queries because of the underlying structure and differences of the databases, and the capabilities of certain products. Federated search products succeed in simplifying access to multiple database resources at school, but searching remains different from the familiar Web search engines in many ways. To become more Google-like, federated searching must be done against indexes built in advance instead of the current real-time searching method."

"Vingt ans après l'observation des usages des catalogues informatisés menée par Joëlle Le Marec à la Bibliothèque publique d'information 1, les administrateurs du portail documentaire actuel, accompagnés par le service Études et recherche, ont souhaité évaluer la réception et la compréhension de cet outil par ses utilisateurs. La méthode des tests scénarisés, très utilisée en ergonomie informatique, a été retenue dans le but de recueillir des données fines concernant les difficultés et points de blocages rencontrés au cours de la consultation. Cette démarche d'évaluation, riche d'enseignement, ouvre à la BPI de nouvelles perspectives en matière de développement et d'évolution de ses interfaces de recherche."