Philip Konomos
Special Projects Administrator
Arizona State University
Implementing a Multi-University Federated Search System

Presentation Abstract

The Arizona State University partnered with the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) and six university libraries in the United States in the collaborative development of a Scholar's Portal. The Scholar's Portal is based on the Zportal software developed by Fretwell Downing Incorporated (FDI). The consortium partners worked together to develop specifications for software; test plans and testing; prioritization of target electronic resources; and the specification and coding of software drivers to query web-based electronic resources. Each consortium partner not only had shared system components, but each also had specialized requirements related to authorization, authentication and data migration. This presentation will deal with the implementation of a federated search system and the challenges of dealing with six universities, ARL and the vendor.