Federated Searching

Allows searching across multiple resources.

Google Scholar is a federated searching tool; it offers a results list, and a little blurb for each link.

Worldcat.org is more library-oriented, searching from one entry all resources: DVDs, articles, books journals. Aside from a list of results, on the left-hand side it has a "Refine Search" column as a guide to help narrow the search.

Vendors such as EBSCO, Gale and ProQuest provided multiple databases as well. Here at HWPL we have the ability to check on use all databases.

while searching dozens of substantially different databases is beneficial in many contexts, it’s important for librarians to keep in mind both the strengths and weaknesses concerning the federated search approach, yet many librarians fail to consider this (see Melissa Rethlefsen’s “Easy ≠Right,” for more on these concerns). Their assumption seems to be that the more you can search at one time, the better the results for the user, which is not always the case.