There was some discussion along these lines over on the  
FederatedSearchBlog, which if you didn't see you might want to peruse...

http://federatedsearchblog.com/2009/03/19/beyond-federated-search/

http://federatedsearchblog.com/2009/03/20/beyond-federated-search-the-conversation-continues/

http://federatedsearchblog.com/2009/03/30/beyond-federated-search-%E2%80%93-winning-the-battle-and-losing-the-war/


Carl

Carl Grant
President
Ex Libris North America
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Skype:     carl_grant



On Apr 21, 2009, at 10:33 AM, Walker, David wrote:

> Even though Summon is marketed as a Serial Solutions system, I tend  
> to think of it more as coming from Proquest (the parent company, of  
> course).
>
> Summon goes a bit beyond what Proquest and CSA have done in the  
> past, loading outside publisher data, your local catalog records,  
> and some other nice data (no small thing, mind you).  But, like Rob  
> and Mike, I tend to see this as an evolutionary step for a database  
> aggregator like Proquest rather than a revolutionary one.
>
> Obviously, database aggregators like Proquest, OCLC, and Ebsco are  
> well positioned to do this kind of work.  The problem, though, is  
> that they are also competitors.  At some point, if you want to have  
> a truly unified local index of _all_ of your database, you're going  
> to have to cross aggregator lines.  What happens then?
>
> --Dave
>
> ==================
> David Walker
> Library Web Services Manager
> California State University
> http://xerxes.calstate.edu
> ________________________________________
> From: Code for Libraries [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Dr  
> R. Sanderson [[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Tuesday, April 21, 2009 8:14 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Serials Solutions Summon
>
> On Tue, 21 Apr 2009, Eric Lease Morgan wrote:
>> On Apr 21, 2009, at 10:55 AM, Dr R. Sanderson wrote:
>>> How is this 'new type' of index any different from an index of OAI- 
>>> PMH
>>> harvested material?  Which in turn is no different from any other
>>> local search, just a different method of ingesting the data?
>
>> This "new type" of index is not any different in functionality from a
>> well-implemented OAI service provider with the exception of the type
>> of content it contains.
>
> Not even the type of content, just the source of the content.
> Eg SS have come to an agreement with the publishers to use their
> content, and they've stuffed it all in one big index with a nice
> interface.
>
> NTSH, Move Along...
>
> Rob